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BIOa-Pl.A.I^I3:iC.A.L ESS-A.'YS. 



ESSAYS, 



BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL; 



OR, 



iAs of €\Mukx. 



BY 



HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. 



" All my life long 
I hare beheld ■with most respect the man 
"Who knew himself, and knew the ways before him ; 
And from amongst them chose considerately. 
With a clear foresight, — not a blindfold courage ; 
And, having chosen, with a steadfast mind 
Pursued his purposes." — Taylok, Philip Van Artevdde. 



BOSTON: 
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY. 
1 8 5T. ^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 

HENRY T. TUCKERJIAN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



stereotyped by 
HOBART i BOBBINS, 

Hew EngUnd Type and Stereotype Foundery, 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, 

THE PATRIOT, 5 

LORD CHESTERFIELD, 

THE MAN OF THE WORLD, • 29 

DANIEL BOONE, 

THE PIONEER, 42 

ROBERT SOUTHEF, 

THE MAN OF LETTERS, 59 

SIR KENELM DIGBY, 

THE MODERN KNIGHT, 75 

JACQUES LAFITTE, 

THE FINANCIER, 83 

EDMUND KEAN, 

THE ACTOR, 95 

THEODORE KORNER, 

THE YOUTHFUL HERO, 103 

ROBERT FULTON, 

THE MECHANICIAN, 121 

JOHN CONSTABLE, 

THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER, 136 

CHATEAUBRIAND, ' 

THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME, 144 

FRANCIS JEFFREY, 

THE REVIEWER 164 

ROGER WILLIAMS, 

THE TOLERANT COLONIST, 181 

RICHARD SAVAGE, 

THE LITERARY ADVENTURER, 191 

DE WITT CLINTON, 

THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST, 204 

JENNY LIND, 

* THE VOCALIST, 222 



IV CONTENTS. 

GEORGE BERKELEY, 

THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER, 238 

GIACOMO LEOPARDI, 

THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS, 267 

DANIEL DE FOE, 

THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE, 285 

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, 

THE ORNITHOLOGIST, 304 

LAURENCE STERNE, 

THE SENTIMENTALIST, 315 

MASSIMO D'AZEGLIO, 

THE LITERARY STATESMAN, 342 

SYDNEY SMITH, 

THE GENIAL CHURCHMAN, 358 

CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, 

THE SUPERNATURALIST, 369 

SIR DAVID WILKIE, 

THE PAINTER OF CHARACTER, 379 

JOSEPH ADDISON, 

THE LAY PREACHER, 394 

GOVERNEUR MORRIS, 

THE AMERICAN STATESMAN, 412 

SILVIO PELLICO, 

THE ITALIAN IMARTYR, 428 

THOMAS CAMPBELL, 

THE POPULAR POET, 441 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 

THE AJMERICAN PHILOSOPHER, 456 



THE PATRIOT. 

GEORGE WASHINGTON 



The memory of Washington is the highest and most precious 
of national blessings, and, as such, cannot be approached by artist 
or author -without reverence. To pervert the traits or to mar the 
unity of such a character is to wrong, not only his sacred mem- 
ory, but the dearest rights of his countrymen. A poet once 
conceived a drama based on the fate of xVndre ; and, after striv- 
ing to embody Washington in the piece, in a manner coincident 
with his own profound sense of his character, he found that the 
only way of effecting this, without -detriment to his ideal, was to 
keep that august presence off the stage, and to hint its vicinity 
by the reverent manner in which the name and views of Wash- 
ington were treated by all the dramatis personm. This instinct 
of dramatic propriety is a most striking proof of the native sacred- 
ness of the subject. The more fertile it may be to the poet and 
philosopher, the less right has the biographer to interfere with, 
overlay, or exaggerate, its primitive truth, and the more careful 
should he be in adhering to the lucid and conscientious statement 
of facts, in themselves, and for themselves, immeasurably precious. 

" You have George the Surveyor," said Carlyle, in his quaint 
way, to an American, when talking of heroes. Never had that 
vocation greater significance. It drew the young Virginian uncon- 
sciously into the best education possible in a new country for a 
military life. He was thereby practised in topographical obser- 
vation ; inured to habits of keen local study ; made familiar with 
1* 



6 TnEPATRIOT. 

the fatigue, exposure, and expedients, incident to journeys on 
foot and horseback, through streams and thickets, over mountains 
and marshes ; taught to accommodate himselF to limited fare, 
strained muscles, the bivouac, the woods, the seasons, self- 
dependence, and effort. This discipline inevitably trained his 
perceptive faculties, and made him the accurate judge he subse- 
quently became of the capabilities of land, from its position, 
limits, and quality, for agricultural and warlike purposes. A love 
of field-sports, the chief amusement of the gentry in the Old 
Dominion, and the oversight of a plantation, were favorable to 
the same result. Life in the open air, skilful horsemanship, and 
the use of the rifle, promoted habits of manly activity. To a 
youth thus bred in the freedom and salubrity of a rural home, 
we are disposed to attribute, in no small degree, the noble devel- 
opment of Washington. How naturally frank courage is fostered 
by such influences, all history attests. The strongest ranks in 
the old Roman armies were levies drawn from the agricultural 
laborers ; the names of Tell and Hofer breathe of the mountains ; 
and the English yeomen decided the victory on the fields where 
their kings encountered-ihe French in the early wars. Political 
economists ascribe the deterioration of modern nations, in those 
qualities which insure fortitude and martial enterprise, to the 
encroachments of town life ; -and the greatest cities of antiquity 
fell through the insidious luxury of commercial success. Nor 
are these general truths inapplicable to personal character. In 
crowded towns artifice prevails. In the struggle for the prizes 
of trafiic, nobility of soul is apt to be lost in thrift. The best 
hours of the day, passed under roofs and in streets, bring not the 
requisite ministry to health, born of the fresh air. It enlarges 
the mind to gaze habitually upon the horizon unimpeded by marts 
and edifices. It keeps fresh the generous impulses to consort 
with hunters and gentlemen, instead of daily meeting ' ' the hard- 
eyed lender .and the pale lendee." In a word, the interest in 
crops and herds, in woodland and upland, the excitement of deer- 
shooting, the care of a rural domain, and the tastes, occupations, 
duties, and pleasures, of an intelligent agriculturist, tend to con- 
serve and expand what is best in human nature, which the spirit 
t)f trade and the competition of social pride are apt to dwarf and 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 7 

overlay. Auspicious, therefore, were the influences around the 
childhood and youth of Washington, inasmuch as they left his 
nature free, identified him with the least artificial of human pur- 
suits, and nursed his physical while they left unperverted his 
moral energies. He became attached to the kind of life of which 
Burke and Webster were so enamored, that they ever turned 
with alacrity from the cares of state to flocks and grain, planting 
and reaping, the morning hunt, and the midsummer harvest. 
There would seem to be a remarkable affinity between the charm 
of occupations like these and the comprehensive and beneficent 
mission of the patriotic statesman. To draw near the heart of 
Nature, to become a proficient in the application of her laws, to 
be, as it were, her active coadjutor, has in it a manliness of aim 
and a refreshing contrast to the wearisome anxieties of political 
life, and the sordid absorption of trade, which charm such noble 
minds, and afford their best resource at once for pastime and 
utility. 

There were, too, in that thinly-peopled region over which 
impends the Blue Ridge, beside the healthful freedom of nature, 
positive social elements at work. The aristocratic sentiment had 
a more elnphatic recognition there than in any other of the Eng- 
lish Cisatlantic colonies ; the distinctions of landed property and 
of gentle blood were deeply felt; the responsibility of a high 
caste, and of personal authority and influence over a subject race, 
kept alive chivalric pride and loyalty ; and, with the duties of the 
agriculturist, the pleasures of the hunt and of the table, and the 
rites of an established and unlimited hospitality, was mingled in 
the thoughts and the conversation of the people that interest in 
political affairs whence arise public spirit and patriotic enthusiasm. 
Thus, while estates carelessly cultivated, the absence of many 
conveniences, the rarity of modern luxuries, the free and easy 
habits of men accustomed rather to oversee workers than to work 
themselves, the rough highways, the unsubstantial dwellings 
and sparse settlements, might not impress the casual observer as 
favorable to elegance and dignity, he soon discovered both among 
the families who boasted of a Cavalier ancestry and transmitted 
noble blood. The Vu-ginia of Sir Walter Raleigh — a country 
where the most extravagant of his golden dreams were to Ipe 



8 THEPATRIOT. 

realized — had given place to a nursery of men, cultivators of 
the soil, and rangers of the woods, where free, genial, and brave 
character found scope ; and the name of the distant colony that 
graced Spenser's dedication of the Faerie Queene to his peerless 
sovereign, instead of being identified with a new El Dorado, was 
to become a shrine of Humanity, as the birthplace and home of 
her noblest exemplar. 

These advantages, however, Washington shared with many 
planters of the South, and manorial residents of the North, and 
they were chiefly negative. A broader range of experience and 
more direct influences were indispensable to refine the manners 
and to test the abilities of one destined to lead men in war, and 
to organize the scattered and discordant elements of a young 
republic. This experience circumstances soon provided. His 
intimacy with Lord Fairfax, who. in the wilds of Virginia, emu- 
lated the courteous splendor of baronial life in England, the 
missions upon which he was sent by the governor of the State, 
combining military, diplomatic, and surveying duties, and espe- 
cially the acquaintance he gained with European tactics in the 
disastrous campaign of Braddock, — all united to prepare him 
for the exigencies of his future career ; so that, in early man- 
hood, with the athletic frame of a hunter and surveyor, the ruddy 
health of an enterprising agriculturist, the vigilant observation 
of a sportsman and border soldier, familiar alike with Indian 
ambush, the pathless forest, freshets and fevers, he had acquired 
the tact of authority, the self-possession that peril can alone 
teach, the dignified manners of a man of society, the firm bear- 
ing of a soldier, aptitude for affairs, and cheerfulness in privation. 
To the keen sense of honor, the earnest fidelity, the modesty of 
soul, and the strength of purpose, which belonged to his nature, 
the life of the youth in his native home, the planter, the engi- 
neer, the ambassador, the representative, the gentleman, and the 
military leader, had thus added a harmony and a scope, which 
already, to discriminating observers, indicated his future genius 
for public life, and his competency to render the greatest national 
services. 

During these first years of public duty and private enterprise, 
it is remarkable that no brilliant achievement served to encourage 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 9 

those latent military aspirations which lurked in his blood. Brad- 
dock scorned his advice ; Governor Dinwiddie failed to recognize 
his superior judgment ; and h^ reached Fort Duquesne only to 
find it abandoned by the enemy. To clear a swamp, lay out a 
road through the wilderness, guide to safety a band of fugitives, 
survey faithfully the Shenandoah valley, treat effectively with 
Indians, and cheer a famished gaf-rison, were indeed services of 
eminent utility ; but it was only indirectly that they were favor- 
able to his renown, and prophetic of his superiority. His appar- 
ently miraculous escapes from bullets, drowning, and the ravages 
of illness, called forth, indeed, the recognition of a providential 
care suggestive of future usefulness ; but the perplexities grow- 
ing out of ill-defined relations between crown and provincial 
officers, the want of discipline in troops, the lack of adequate 
provision for the exigencies of public service, reverses, defeats, 
physical and moral emergencies, thus early so tried the patience 
of Washington, by the long endurance of care, disappointment, 
and mortification, unredeemed by the glory which is wont to 
attend even such martyrdom, that he cheerfully sought retire- 
ment, and was lured again to the field only by the serious danger 
which threatened his neighbors, and the prompting of absolute 
duty. The retrospect of this era of his life derives significance 
and interest from subsequent events. We cannot look ba<;k, as 
he must often have done from the honorable retreat of his age, 
without recognizing the preparatory ordeal of his career in this 
youth and early manhood, wherein he experienced, alternately, 
the solace of domestic comfort and the deprivations of a border 
campaign, the tranquil respectability of private station and the 
responsibility of anxious office, the practice of the camp and the 
meditations of the council, the hunt with gentlemen and the fight 
with savages, the safe and happy hospitality of a retined circle and 
forest life in momentary expectation of an ambush. Through all 
these scenes, and in each situation, we see him preserving perfect 
self-control, loyal to every duty, as firm and cheerful during the 
bitter ordeal at Fort Necessity as when riding over his domain on a 
summer morning, or shooting game on the banks of the Potomac, 
ready to risk health, to abandon ease, to forego private interests, 
with a public spii'it worthy of the greatest statesman, yet scru- 



10 THEPATRIOT.. 

pnlous, methodical, and considerate in every detail of affairs and 
position, w licthcr as a host, a master, a guardian, a son, or a hus- 
band, as a member of a household cr a legislator, as leader of a 
regiment or agent of a survey ; and, so highly appreciated was 
he for this signal fidelity within his then limited sphere, that his 
opinion in a social discussion, his brand on tobacco, his sign- 
manual to a chart, his reporf to a superior, and his word of 
advice or of censure to a dependent, bore at once and forever 
the sterling currency and absolute meaning which character 
alone bestows. In this routine of duty and vicissitude under 
these varied circumstances, in the traits they elicited and the 
confidence they established, it is impossible not to behold a school 
often severe, yet adequately instructive, and a gradual influence 
upon the will, the habits, and the disposition of Washington, 
which laid the foundations, deep, broad, and firm, of his charac- 
ter, and confirmed the principles as well as the aptitudes of his 
nature. 

So intimately associated in our minds is the career of Wash- 
ington with lofty and unsullied renown, tbat it is difficult to recall 
him as divested of the confidence which his fame insured. We 
are apt to forget that when he took command of the army his 
person was unfamiliar, and his character inadequately tested to 
the public sense. Officers who shared his counsels, comrades in 
the French war, neighbors at Mount Vernon, the leading men of 
his native State, and a few statesmen who had carefully informed 
themselves of his antecedent life and private reputation, did, 
indeed, well appreciate his integrity, valor, and self-respect ; but 
to the majority who had enlisted in the imminent struggle, and 
the large number who cautiously watched its prospects before 
committing either their fortunes or their honor, the elected chief 
was a stranger. Nor had he that natural facility of adaptation, 
or those conciliating manners, which have made the fresh leader 
of troops an idol in a month, nor the diplomatic courtesy that 
wins political allies. If we may borrow a metaphor from natural 
philosophy, it was not by magnetism, so much as by gravitation, 
that his moral authority was established. There was nothing in 
him to dazzle, as in Napoleon, nothing to allure, as in Louis 
Xiy., when they sought to inspire their armies with enthusiasm. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 11 

The power of Washington as a guide, a chieftain, and a represen- 
tative of his country, was based on a less dramatic and more 
permanent law ; he gained the influence so essential to success, — 
the ability to control others, — by virtue of a sublime self-govern- 
ment. It was, in the last analysis, because personal interest, 'selfish 
ambition, safety, comfort, — all that human instincts endear, — 
were cheerfully sacrificed, because passions naturally strong were 
kept in abeyance by an energetic will, because disinterestedness 
was demonstrated as a normal fact of character, that gradually, 
but surely, and by a law as inevitable as that which holds a planet 
to its orbit, public faith was irrevocably attached to him. But 
the process was slow, the delay hardly tolerable to a noble heart, 
the ordeal wearisome to a brave spirit. In our view, no period 
of his life is more affecting than the early months of his command, 
when his prudence was sneered at by the ambitious, his military 
capacity distrusted even by his most intimate friends, and his 
" masterly inactivity " misinterpreted by those who awaited his 
signal for action. The calm remonstrance, the inward grief, the 
exalted magnanimity, which his letters breathe at this crisis, 
reveal a heroism of soul not surpassed in any subsequent achieve- 
ment. No man ever illustrated more nobly the profound truth 
of Milton's sentiment, "They also serve who only stand and 
wait." His was not simply the reticence of a soul eager for 
enterprise, the endurance of a forced passivity, with vast peril 
and glorious possibilities, the spur of necessity, the thirst for 
glory, and the readiness for sacrifice stirring every pulse and 
bracing every nerve ; but it was his part to " stand and wait " in 
the midst of the gravest perplexities, in the face of an expectant 
multitude, with a knowledge of circumstances that justified the 
" hope delayed," and without the sympathy which alleviates the 
restless pain of " hope deferred," — to " stand and wait " before 
the half-averted eye of the loyal, the gibes of a powerful enemy, 
the insinuations of factious comrades. — with only conscious rec- 
titude and trust in Heaven for support. How, in his official cor- 
respondence, did Washington hush the cry of a wounded spirit ; 
how plaintively it hdlf escapes in the letter of friendship ; and 
how singly does he keep his gaze on the great cause, and dash 
aside the promptings of self-love, in the large cares and imper- 



12 THEPATRIOT. 

sonal interests of a country, not yet sensible of its infinite need 
of liim, and of its own injustice ! 

The difficulties which military leadership involves are, to a 
certain extent, similar in all cases, and inevitable. All great 
commanders have found the risks of battle often the least of their 
trials. Disaffection among the soldiers, inadequate food and 
equipment, lack of experience in the officers and of discipline in 
the troops, jealousy, treason, cowardice, opposing counsels, and 
other nameless dangers and perplexities, more or less complicate 
the solicitude of every brave and loyal general. But in the case 
of Washington, at the opening of the American war, these obsta- 
cles to success were increased by his own conscientiousness ; and 
circumstances without a parallel in previous history added to the 
vicissitudes incident to all warfare the hazards of a new and vast 
political experiment. That his practical knowledge of military 
affairs was too limited for him to cope auspiciously with veteran 
officers, — that his camp was destitute of engineers, his men of 
sufficient clothing and ammunition, — that' the majority of them 
were honest but inexpert yeomen, — that tory spies and luke- 
warm adherents were thickly interspersed among them, — that 
zeal for liberty was, for the most part, a spasmodic motive, not 
yet firmly coexistent w^ith national sentiment, — that he was 
obliged, month after month, to keep these incongruous and dis- 
contented materials together, inactive, mistrustful, and vaguely 
apprehensive, — all this constitutes a crisis like that through 
which many have passed ; but the immense extent of the country 
in behalf of which this intrepid leader drew his sword, the diver- 
sity of occupations and character which it was indispensable to 
reconcile with the order and discipline of an army, the habits of 
absolute independence which marked the American colonists of 
every rank, the fi-eedom of opinion, the local jealousies, the brief 
period of enlistment, the obligation, ridiculed by foreign officers 
but profoundly respected by Washington, to refer and defer to 
Congress iil every emergency, — this loose and undefined power 
over others in the field, this dependence for authority on a dis- 
tant assembly, for aid on a local legislature, and for cooperation 
on patriotic feeling alone, so thwarted the aims, perplexed the 
action, and neutralized the personal efficiency of Washington, that 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 13 

a man less impressed with the greatness of the object m view, 
less sustained by solemn earnestness of purpose and trust in God, 
■would have abandoned in despair the post of duty, so isolated, 
ungracious, desperate, and forlorn. 

Imagine how, in his pauses from active oversight, his few and 
casual hours of repose and solitude, the full consciousness of his 
position — of the facts of the moment, so clear to his practical 
eye — must have weighed upon his soul. The man on whose 
professional skill he could best rely during the first months of the 
war, he knew to be inspired by the reckless ambition of the adven- 
turer, rather than the wise ardor of the patriot. Among the 
Eastern citizens the spirit of trade, with its conservative policy 
and evasive action, quenched the glow of public spirit. Where 
one merchant, like Hancock, risked his all for the good cause, 
and committed himself with a bold and emphatic signature to the 
bond, and one trader, like Knox, closed his shop and journeyed 
in the depth of winter to a far distant fort, to bring, through 
incredible obstacles, ammunition and cannon to the American 
camp, hundreds passively guarded their hoards, and awaited cau- 
tiously the tide of affairs. While Washington anxiously watched 
the enemy's ships in the harbor of Boston, his ear no less anx- 
iously listened for tidings from Canada and the South. To-day, 
the cowardice of the militia ; to-morrow, the death of the gallant 
Montgomery ; now, the capture of Lee, and again, a foul calumny; 
at one moment a threat of resignation from Schuyler, and at 
another an Indian alliance of Sir Guy Johnson ; the cruelty of 
his adversaries to a prisoner ; the delay of Congress to pass an 
order for supplies or relief; desertions, insubordination, famine; 
a trading Yankee's stratagem or a New York tory's intrigue ; 
the insulting bugle-note which proclaimed his fugitives a hunted 
pack, and the more bitter whisper of distrust in his capacity or 
impatience at his quiescence : these, and such as these, were the 
discouragements which thickened around his gloomy path, and 
shrouded the dawn of the Revolution in dismay. He was thus, 
by the force of circumstances, a pioneer ; he was obliged to create 
precedents, and has been justly commended as the master of " a 
higlier art than making war, the art to control and direct it," and 
as a proficient in those victories of '' peace no less renowned than 
2 



14 THEPATRIOT. 

war," which, as Fisher Ames declared, '' changed mankind's 
ideas of political greatness." 

What, we are continually impelled to ask, were the grounds 
of hope, the resources of trust and patience, which, at such crises, 
and more especially during the early discouragements of the 
struggle, buoyed up and sustained that heroic equanimity, which 
excited the wonder, and finally won the confidence, of the people? 
First of all, a settled conviction of the justice of his cause and the 
favor of God; then a belief, not carelessly adopted, that, if he 
avoided as long as possible a general action, by well-arranged 
defences and retreats, opportunities would occur when the enemy 
could be taken at disadvantage, and by judicious surprises gradu- 
ally worn out and vanquished. Proof was not wanting of a true 
patriotic enthusiasm, — unorganized, indeed, and impulsive, yet 
real, and capable, by the prestige of success or the magnetism of 
example, of being aroused and consolidated into invincible vigor. 
Scattered among the lukewarm and the inexperienced friends of 
the cause were a few magnanimous and self-devoted men, pledged 
irretrievably to its support, and ready to sacrifice life, and all 
that makes life dear, in its behalf Greene and Putnam, Knox 
and Schuyler, Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton, were 
names of good cheer, and reliable watchwords in the field and the 
council ; Franklin and Adams were representatives of national 
sentiment rarely equalled in wisdom and intrepidity ; the legisla- 
tive body, whence his authority was derived, more and more 
strengthened his hands and recognized his ability ; the undisci- 
plined New Englanders hollowed a trench and heaped a mound 
with marvellous celerity and good-will; bushfighters from the 
South handled the rifle with unequalled skill; a remarkable 
inactivity on the part of the enemy indicated their ignorance of 
the real condition of the American army ; and last, though not 
least, experience soon proved that, however superior in a pitched 
battle, the regular troops were no match for militia in retrieving 
defeat and disaster. The marvellous siege of Boston, the masterly 
retreat from Brooklyn Heights, the success at Sullivan's Island, 
and the capture of the Hessians at Trenton, made it apparent 
that vigilant sagacity and well-timed bravery are no inadequate 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 15 

compensation for the lack of material resources and a disciplined 
force. 

Everything combines, in the events of the war and the charac- 
ter of the man, to deepen moral interest and extinguish dramatic 
effect. In the absence of " the pomp and circumstance '" of war, 
and the latent meaning and grand results involved, the chronicle 
differs from all other military and civil annals. The " lucky 
blows " and " levies of husbandmen," the poorly clad and gro- 
tesquely armed patriots, were as deficient in brilliancy of tactics 
and picturesque scenes, as was the bearing and aspect of their 
leader in the dashing and showy attractions of soldiership. 
" His eyes have no fire," says the Hessian's letter. An adept 
in the school of Frederic could find scarcely a trace of the perfect 
drill and astute combinations which were, in his view, the only 
guaranties of success in battle. The arrogant confidence of 
Marlborough, the inspired manoeuvres of Napoleon, ordered with 
the rapidity of intuition beside a camp-fire and between pinches 
of snuff, the theatrical charge of Murat, the cool bravery of Wil- 
liam of Orange, — all that is effective and romantic in our asso- 
ciations with military iieroism gives place in this record to the 
most stern and least illusive realities. The actors are men tem- 
porarily drawn from their ordinary pursuits by a patriotic enthu- 
siasm which displays itself in a very matter-of-fact way. The 
only sublimity that attends them is derived from the great interest 
at stake, and the deliberate self-devotion exhibited. Patience far 
beyond action, caution rather than enterprise, faith more than 
emulation, are the virtues demanded. What of poetry lies hidden 
in the possibilities of achievement is solemn rather than chivalric ; 
endurance is the test, perseverance the grand requisite, indomit- 
able spirit the one thing needful ; and in these conditions, the 
restless, ambitious, and mercenary, who form the staple of armies, 
can find little scope or encouragement. It is neither the land nor 
the era for laurel crowns and classic odes, for orders and patents 
of nobility. If the volunteer falls, his only consolation is that 
he fills a patriot's grave, while some rude ballad may commemo- 
rate the victim, and the next Thanksgi"\dng sermon of the pastor 
of his native hamlet may attest his worth. If he survives, a 
grant of land, where land is almost worthless, and an approving 



16 THEPATRIOT. 

resolution of Congress, arc the only prizes in store for him, — 
save that greatest of all, the consciousness of having faithfully 
served his country. 

The tableaux of Washington's life, however inadequately 
represented as yet in art, are too familiar to afford room for 
novel delineation to his biographer ; and they differ from the 
prominent and dramatic events in other lives of warriors and 
statesmen in a latent significance and a prophetic interest that 
appeal to the heart more than to the eye. When we see the 
pyramids looming in the background of Yernet's canvas, the 
imagination is kindled by the association of Napoleon's victories 
with the mystical and far-away Egyptian land ; but the idea of 
a successful hero, in the usual meaning of the term, of a distant 
campaign, of the spread of dominion, is dwarfed before the more 
sublime idea of a nation's birth, a vindication of inalienable 
human rights, a consistent assertion of civil freedom and the oyqy- 
throw of tyranny, suggested by the successive portraits so dear 
to the American heart : — first, the surveyor guiding his fragile 
raft over the turbulent Alleghany; then the intrepid aide-de- 
camp^ rallying the fugitive army of Braddock ; next the digni- 
fied commander, drawing the sword of freedom under the majestic 
shadow of the Cambridge elm ; the baffled but undismayed leader, 
erect in the boat which shivers amid the floating ice of the 
Delaware, his calm eye fired with a bold and sagacious purpose : 
•cheering his famished and ragged men in the wintry desolation 
of Yalley Forge; then receiving the final surrender of the 
enemies of his country ; in triumphal progress through a redeemed 
and rejoicing land ; taking the oath as first President of the 
Republic ; breathing his farewell blessings and monitions to his 
countrymen ; dispensing, in peaceful retirement, the hospitalities 
of Mount Yernon ; and at last followed to the tomb with the 
tearful benedictions of humanity ! It is the absolute meaning, 
the wide scope, the glorious issue, and not the mere pictorial 
effect, that absorbs the mind intent on these historical pictures. 
They foreshadow and retrace a limitless perspective, fraught with 
the welfare, not only of our country, but of our race. In com- 
parison with them, more dazzling and gorgeous illustrations of 
the life of nations are as evanescent in effect as the mirage that 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 17 

paints its dissolving views on the horizon, or as a pyrotechnic glare 
beside the stars of the firmament. 

As we ponder the latest record of his life> its method and. 
luminous order excite a new conviction of the wonderful adapta;- 
tion of the man to the exigency ; and it is one of the great mer- 
its of the work that this impressive truth is more distinctly 
revealed by its pages than ever before. Not a trait of character 
but has especial reference to some emergency. The very faults 
of manner, as crude observers designate them, contribute to the 
influence, and thereby to the success, of the commander-in-chief. 
A man of sterner ambition would have risked all on some des- 
perate encounter ; a man of less self-respect would have perilled 
his authority, where military discipline was so imperfect, in 
attempts at conciliation ; a man of less solid and more speculative 
mind would have compromised his prospects by inconsiderate 
arrangements ; one less disinterested would have abandoned the 
cause from wounded self-love, and one less firm, from impatience 
and dismay; one whose life and m.otives could not bear the 
strictest scrutiny would soon have forfeited confidence ; and 
moral consistency and, elevation could alone have fused the dis- 
cordant elements and concentrated the divided spirit of the people. 
Above all, the felicitous balance of qualities, through a modera- 
tion almost superhuman, and never before so essential to the 
welfare of a cause, stamped the man for the mission. Not more 
obviously was the character of Moses adapted to the office of 
primeval lawgiver for the chosen people, — not more clearly do the 
endowments of Dante signalize him as the poet ordained to bridge 
with undying song the chasm which separates the Middle Age 
from modern civilization, than the mind, the manner, the disposi- 
tion, the physical " and spiritual gifts, and the principles of 
Washington proclaimed him the Heaven-appointed chief, magis- 
trate, man of America. In the very calmness and good sense, 
the practical tone and moderate views^ which make him such a 
contrast to the world's heroes, do we behold the evidence of this. 
What does he proclaim as the reward of victory ? '• The oppor- 
tunity to become a respectable nation." Upon what is based his 

* Irving's Life of Washington. 

2^ 



18 T II E P A T R I T . 

expectation of success ? "I believe, or at least I hope, that there 
is public virtue enough left among us to deny ourselves every- 
thing but the bare necessaries of life to accomplish this end." 
What are his private resources? " As I have found no better 
guide hitherto than upright intentions and close investigations. I 
shall adhere to those maxims while I keep the watch." This 
moderation has been fitly called persuasive^ and this well-regu- 
lated mind justly declared "born for command." His reserve, 
too, was essential in such an anomalous condition of social affairs. 
Self-respect is the keystone of the arch of character ; and it kept 
his character before the army and the people, his brother officers 
and his secret foes, the country and the enemy, firm, lofty, 
unassailable, free, authoritative, — like a planet, a mountain, a 
rock, one of the immutable facts of nature, — a Pharos to guide, 
a sublimity to awe, and an object of unsullied beauty to win by 
the force of spontaneous attraction. It is his distinction among 
national leaders, as has been well said by our foremost ethical 
writer, to have been " the centre of an enlightened people's con- 
fidence." The nature of the feeling he inspired among the 
troops may be inferred from the expression in a letter from the 
camp at White Plains, preserved in a gazette of the times : 
"Everything looks very favorable; a fine army of at least 
twenty thousand men in remarkably good health and spirits, 
consummate wisdom^ centred in a Washinc/ton^ to direct them, 
and a determined spirit with the whole body to die or carry our 
purpose into effect." His relation w^as obviously representative; 
he incarnated the highest existent patriotism. His wisdom, not 
his genius, is thus recognized as the grand qualification. His own 
remark concerning Hamilton is singularly applicable to himself, — 
" His judgment was intuitively great : " and this was the intel- 
lectual endowment which justified to the good sense of the people 
the confidence which his integrity confirmed. 

Another secret cause of this remarkable personal influence was 
self-restraint. There is no law of nature more subtle and pro- 
found than that whereby latent power is generated. The silent 
weight of the distant lake sends up the lofty jet of the fountain ; 
and the clouds are fed by innumerable particles of aeriform 
moisture. The electric force generated amid the balmy quietude 



( 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 19 

of the summer noon, the avalanche slowly conglomerated from 
the downy snow-flakes, the universal process of vegetation, the 
vast equilibrium of gravity, the irresistible encroachment of the 
tide, and all broad and grand effects in the universe, are the 
reverse of violent, ostentatious, and fitful. By gradual develop- 
ment, harmonized activity, regular and progressive transitions, 
are enacted the most comprehensive functions of the physical 
world. A similar law obtains in character. The most expressive 
phrases in literature are the least rhetorical ; the noblest acts in 
history are performed with the least mystery ; true greatness is 
unconscious; " life," says the wise German, " begins with renun- 
ciation ; " silence is often more significant than speech ; the eye 
of affection utters more with a glance than the most eloquent 
tongue ; passion, curbed, becomes a motive force of incalculable 
energy ; and feeling, subdued, penetrates the soul with a calm 
authority and the manner with an irresistible magnetism. Our 
instinct divines what is thus kept in abeyance by will with a pro- 
founder insight than the most emphatic exhibition could bring 
home through the senses. The true artist is conscious of this 
principle, and ever strives to hint to the imagination rather than 
to display before the eye. The poet, aware by intuition of this 
law, gives the clew, the composer the key-note, the philosopher 
the germinal idea, rather than a full and palpable exposition. 
In the moral world latent agencies are the most vital. If 
"Washington had been the cold, impassive man those whom he 
treated objectively declared him to . be, he could not have exer- 
cised the personal influence which, both in degree and in kind, 
has never been paralleled by merely human qualities. It was 
not to the correct and faithful yet insensible hero that men thus 
gave their veneration, but to one whose heart was as large and 
tender as his mind was sagacious and his will firm : the study 
of whose life it was to control emotion ; to whom reserve was the 
habit inspired by a sublime prudence ; whose career was one of 
action, and over whose conscience brooded an ever-present sense 
of responsibility to God and man, to his country and his race, 
which encircled his anxious brow with the halo of a prophet 
rather than the laurel of a victor. He who knelt in tears by 
the death-bed of his step-daughter, who wrung his hands in 



20 T II E P A T 11 1 T . 

anguish to behold the vain sacrifice of his soldiers, who threw his 
hat on the ground in mortification at their cowardly retreat, whose 
face was mantled with blushes when he attempted to reply to a 
vote of thanks, whose lips quivered when obliged to say farewell 
to his companions in arms, who embraced a brother officer in the 
transports of victory, and trembled with indignation when he ral- 
lied the troops of a faithless subaltern, — he could have preserved 
outward calmness only by inward conflict, and only by the self- 
imposed restraint of passion have exercised the authority of prin- 
ciple. When the cares of public duty w^ere over, and the claims 
of official dignity satisfied, the affiibility of Washington was as 
conspicuous as his self-respect, his common sense and humane 
sentiments as obvious as his modesty and his heroism. The vis- 
itors at Mount Vernon, many of whom have recorded their 
impressions, included a singular variety of characters, from the 
courtier of Versailles to the farmer of New England, from the 
English officer to the Italian artist ; and it is remarkable, that, 
various as are the terms in which they describe the illustrious 
host, a perfect identity in the portrait is obvious. They all cor- 
respond with the description of Chief Justice Marshall : — 

"His exterior created in the beholder the idea of strength, 
united with manly gracefulness. His person and Avhole deport- 
ment exhibited an unaifected and indescribable dignity, mingled 
with haughtiness, of which all who approached him were sensi- 
ble ; and the attachment of those "who possessed his friendship 
and enjoyed his intimacy* was ardent, but always respectful. His 
temper was humane, benevolent, and conciliatory ; but there was 
a quickness in his sensibility to anything apparently offensive, 
which experience had taught him to correct." 

To a reflective mind there is something pathetic in the gravity 
so often noticed as a defect in Washington. It foreshadowed, in . 
his youth, the great work before him, and it testified, in his man- 
hood, to his deep sense of its obligations. It betokened that ear- 
nestness of purpose w^herein alone rested the certainty of eventual 
success. It was the solemnity of thought and of conscience, and 
assured the people that, aware of being the central point of their 
faith, the expositor of their noblest and best desires, the high- 
priest of national duty, it was not with the complacency of a 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 21 

proud, or the excitement of a vain, but with the awe of a thor- 
oughly wise and honest man, that he felt the mightj trust and 
the perilous distinction. Let it never be forgotten that it was his 
task to establish a grand precedent, untried, unheralded, unfore- 
seen in the world. Such experiments, in all spheres of labor and 
of study, lead the most vivacious men to think. In science, in 
art, and in philosophy, they breed pale and serious votaries. 
Such an ordeal chastened the ardent temper of Luther, knit the 
brow of Michael Angelo with furrows, and unnerved the frame 
of the starry Galileo. It is but a pledge of reality, of self-devo- 
tion, of intrepid will, therefore, that, with a long and arduous 
struggle for national life to guide and inspire, and the foundations 
of a new constitutional republic to lay, the chief and the States- 
man should cease even to smile, and grow pensive and stern in 
the face of so vast an enterprise, and under the weight of such 
measureless responsibilities. 

The w^orld has yet to understand the intellectual, efficiency 
derived from moral qualities, — how the candor of an honest and 
the clearness of an unperverted mind attain results beyond the 
reach of mere intelligence and adroitness, — how conscious integ- 
rity gives both insight and directness to mental operations, and 
elevation above the plane of selfish motives affords a more com- 
prehensive, and therefore a more reliable view of affairs, than the 
keenest examination based exclusively on personal ability. It 
becomes apparent, when illustrated by a life and its results, that 
the cunning of a Talleyrand, the military genius of a Napoleon, 
the fascinating qualities of a Fox, and other similar endowments 
of statesmen and soldiers, are essentially limited and temporary 
in their influence ; whereas a good average intellect, sublimated by 
self-forgetting intrepidity, allies itself forever to the central and 
permanent interests of humanity. The mind of Washington was 
eminently practical : his perceptive faculties were strongly devel- 
oped; the sense of beauty and the power of expression, those 
endowments so large in the scholar and the poet, were the least 
active in his nature ; but the observant powers whereby space is 
measured at a glance, and the physical qualities noted correctly, 
— the reflective instincts through which just ideas of facts and 
circumstances are realized, — the sentiment of order which regu- 



22 T II E P A T R I T . 

lates the most chaotic elements of duty and -work, thus securing 
despatch and precision, — the openness to right impressions char- 
acteristic of an iatellect, over which the "visionary tendencies of 
imagination cast no delusion, and whose chief affinity is for abso- 
lute truth, — these noble and efficient qualities eminently distin- 
guished his mental organization, and were exhibited as its normal 
traits from childhood to age. To them we refer his prescience in 
regard to the agricultural promise of wild tracts, the future 
growth of localities, the improvement of estates, the facilities of 
communication, the adaptation of soils, and other branches of eco- 
nomics. By means of them he read character with extraordinary 
success. They led him to methodize his life and labors, to plan 
with wisdom and execute with judgment, to use the most appro- 
priate terms in conversation and writing, to keep the most exact 
accounts, to seek useful information from every source, to weigh 
prudently and decide firmly, to measure his words and manner 
with singular adaptation to the company and the occasion, to keep 
tranquil within his own brain perplexities, doubts, projects, anxi- 
eties, cares, and hopes enough to bewilder the most capacious 
intellect and to sink the boldest heart. His mental features beam 
through his correspondence. We say this advisedly, notwith- 
standing the formal and apparently cold tenor of many of his let- 
ters ; for so grand is the sincerity of purpose, so magnanimous 
the spirit, so patient, reverent, and devoted the sentiment under- 
lying these brief and unadorned epistles, whether of business or 
courtesy, that a moral glow interfuses their plain and direct lan- 
guage, often noble enough to awaken a thrill of admiration, 
together with a latent pathos that starts tears in the reader of 
true sensibility. The unconsciousness of self, the consideration 
for others, the moderation in success, the calmness in disaster, the 
singleness of purpose, the heroic self-reliance, the immaculate 
patriotism, the sense of God and humanity, the wise, fearless, 
truthful soul that is thus revealed, in selfrpossessed energy in the 
midst of the heaviest responsibilities that ever pressed on mortal 
heart, with the highest earthly good in view, and the most com- 
plicated obstacles around, serene, baffled, yet never overcome, 
and never oblivious of self-respect or neglectful of the minutest 
details of official and personal duty,' — is manifest to our conscious- 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 23 

ness as we read, and we seem to behold the benign and dignified 
countenance of the writer through the transparent medium of his 
unpretending letters. Compare, as illustrations of character, the 
authenticity of which is beyond dispute, the correspondence of 
Washington and that between Napoleon and his brother Joseph, 
recently published at Paris. All the romance of spurious me- 
moirs, all the dazzling 'prestige of military genius, fails to obviate 
the impression the emperor's own pen conveys, in the honest 
utterance of fraternal correspondence, of his obtuse egotism, arro- 
gant self-will, and heartless ambition. In Washington's letters, 
whether expostulating, in the name of our common humanity, 
with Gage, striving to reconcile Schuyler to the mortifications of 
a service he threatened to quit in disgust, freely describing his 
own trials to Reed, pleading with Congress for supj^lies, directing 
the management of his estate from amid the gloomy cares of the 
camp, acknowledging a gift from some foreign nobleman, or a 
copy of verses from poor Phillis Wheatley, the same perspicuity 
and propriety, wisdom and kindliness, self-respect and remem- 
brance of every personal obligation, are obvious. 

The eloquent biographer of Goethe has aptly compared the 
agency of strong passions to the torrents which leave ribs of 
granite to mark their impetuous course, and significantly adds : 
"There are no whirlpools in shallows." How much nobler the 
sustaining and concentrative result of these turbulent elements 
becomes when they are governed and guided by will and conscience, 
the character of Washington singularly illustrates: and "passion, 
when in a state of solemn and omnipotent vehemence, always ap- 
pears to be calmness." These considerations enable us to reconcile 
what is apparently incongruous in the reports of different observ- 
ers who have attempted to describe Washington's manner, aspect, 
and disposition. Thus we are told by one of his intimate compan- 
ions, that he was "more free and open in his behavior at levee 
than in private, and in the company of ladies than when solely 
with men; " and by another, that "hard, important, and labori- 
ous service had given a kind of austerity to his countenance and 
reserve to his manner, yet he was the kindest of husbands, the 
most humane of masters, the steadiest of friends." One speaks 
of his large hand," the token of practical efficiency ; one, of his 



24 T H E P A T R I T . 

personal attention to an invited guest ; one, of his sagacious 
observations, in travelling, upon the facilities for internal commu- 
nication or agriculture, suggested by the face of the country ; and 
another, of his avoidance of personal subjects in conversation. 
But, in our view, some of the most striking tributes to the gradual 
but absolute recognition of his character are to be found in the 
contemporary public journals. Thus a London paper of Febru- 
ary, 1784, says : " His circular letter to the army was read at a 
coffee-house not very distant from the Royal Exchange ; every 
hearer was full of the writer's praises ; in composition it was said 
to be equal to anything of ancient or modern date." Subse- 
quently, another popular English journal holds this language : 
" Whenever the shock of accident shall have so far operated on 
the policy of America as to have systematized and settled her 
governmentj it is obvious that the dictator, protector, stadtholder, 
or by whatever name the chief magistrate so appointed shall be 
called, will be General Washington." His retirement established 
the purity of his motives ; and a Dublin print, dated the same 
year with our first extract, said : — 

"There are few so blinded by prejudice, as to deny such a 
degree of merit to the American general as to place him in a very 
distinguished point of view ; but even those who have been accus- 
tomed to view him as the most illustrious character of this or any 
other age, will be astonished by the following instance of his 
integrity, which we give from the most unquestionable authority. 
When General Washington accepted the command of the Ameri- 
can army, he rejected all pecuniary reward or pay whatever, and 
only stipulated for the reimbursement of such sums as he might 
expend in the public service. Accordingly, at the conclusion of 
the war, he gave in to Congress the whole of his seven years' 
expenditure, which only amounted to sixteen thousand pounds 
Pennsylvania currency, or ten thousand pounds sterling. In the 
eyes of our modern British generals the above circumstance will 
appear totally incredible : at least, they will deem Mr. Washing- 
ton little better than a fool ; for, if we judge from certain 
accounts, ten thousand pounds would scarcely have answered 
the demands of a commander-in-chief at New York a single 
month." 



i 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 25 

These items, taken at random from the newspapers of his day, 
serve to make us understand how the man whose cautious gen- 
eralship provoked the ridicule of Lord Howe's soldiers at the 
opening of the war, and whose firmness in resisting the French 
alUance awoke a storm of detraction from the Jeffersonian democ- 
racy at a later period, lived down aspersion, and became, by the 
evidence of facts, the acknowledged exemplar of human worth and 
wisdom described by his last and best biographer. 

His moral serenity, keeping reflection intact and forethought 
vigilant, is nobly manifest in the deliberate process through 
which, by gradual and therefore earnest conviction, he came to a 
decision when the difficulties between the mother country and her 
colonies were pending. Not one of the leading patriots of the 
Revolution ranged himself under its banner with more conscien- 
tious and rational motives. The same disposition is evident in 
his hesitation to accept the command, from that self-distrust 
which invariably marks a great and therefore modest soul, in bis 
subsequent calmness in defeat and sobriety in victory, in the 
unexaggerated view he took of the means and his disinterested 
view of the ends of the momentous struggle, in the humility of 
spirit with which he assumed the reins of government when 
called to do so by the popular suffrage, in his uniform deference 
to the authority of all representative assemblies, in the prescient 
warnings of his parting address, in the unostentatious and simple 
habits that followed him into retirement, and in the unfaltering 
trust which gave dignity to his last hour. This normal charac- 
teristic of his nature, this being ever "nobler than his mood," is 
what preeminently distinguishes him from the galaxy of patriots, 
statesmen, and warriors, whose names are blazoned in history ; for 
the copious rhetoric of modern republicans, the fiery and yet 
often compromised pride of Paoli, the selfish instincts of Marl- 
borough, the heartless ambition of Napoleon, were never long 
concealed, even from the eye kindled with admiration at their 
prowess. Washington seems not for a moment to have forgotten 
his responsibility to God and his fellow-creatures ; and this deep 
sentiment permeated his Avhole nature, — proof against all excite- 
ment, illusion, and circumstance. When he overheard a little 
boy exclaim, as the procession in his honor passed through the 



26. T II E P A T R I T . 

streets, "Why, father, General Washington is only a man!" the 
illustrious guest paused in his triumphal march, looked with 
thoughtful interest on the child, and, patting him on the head, 
replied, "That's all, my little fellow, that 'sail." He was, 
indeed, one of the few heroes who never forgot his humanity, its 
relations, obligations, dependence, and destiny ; and herein was 
at once his safeguard and his glory. 

These facts of character were viewed by distant and illustrious 
men in relation to their own experience ; yet, diverse as may be 
the inference of each, a like feeling of admiration, and a testi- 
mony equally sincere and emphatic, signalize every tribute to the 
unparalleled and inestimable worth of Washington in the ?.nnals 
of humanity. The popular statesman, who had become familiar 
with the deadly aspersions of party hatred, wondered that so 
many inimical eyes intent upon a career exposed to the keenest 
personal criticism failed to discover and fix one stain upon the 
reputation of the man, the statesman, or the soldier. This 
" excites astonishment," said Fox. The splendid advocate, who 
knew how the spell of official dignity was broken to the vision of 
those near the sceptre and the ermine, recorded, as an isolated 
fact in his knowledge of mankind, that Washington alone inspired 
him with the unmodified sentiment of veneration. " For you 
only." writes Erskine, "do I feel an awful reverence." The 
incident of his career which impressed the most renowned soldier 
of the age was characteristic at once of the limited scope and the 
enthusiasm of military genius. The bold and successful passage 
of the Delaware, and the surprise of the Hessians, awakened in 
Frederic of Prussia the sympathy and high appreciation which he 
manifested by the gift of a sword, with an inscription exclusively 
in praise of Washington's generalship. The moderation of his 
nature, the heroic balance of soul, whereby elation was kept in 
abeyance in the hour of success, not less nobly than despair in 
the day of misfortune, attracted the French philosopher, habit- 
uated as he was in the history ot his own nation to the association 
of warlike and civic fame with the extremes of zeal and indiffer- 
ence, of violence and caprice. In his estimation, the good sense 
and moral consistency of Washington and his compatriots natu- 
rally offered the most remarkable problem. Accordingly, Guizot 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 27 

bears witness chiefly to this unprecedented union of comprehen- 
sive designs and prudential habits, of aspiration and patience, in 
the character of Washington, and, doubtless through the contrast 
with the restless ambition which marks the lives of his own illus- 
trious countrymen, is mainly struck with the fact, that, while 
'' capable of rising to the level of the highest destiny, he might 
have lived in ignorance of his real power without sufiering from 
it." The Italian patriot, obliged to vent his love of country in 
terse dramatic colloquies and through the lips of dead heroes, is 
thrilled with the grand possibilities of action, through the realiza- 
tion of his sentiments by achievement, opened to Washington. 
''^Felice voi^'^ exclaims Alfieri, in his dedication of Bruto Primo 
to the republican chief, — ^'felice voi che alia tanta gloria avete 
potato dare base sublime ed eterna^ — Vamor della j?atria 
dimostrato coi fattV^ Even the poor Indians, so often cajoled 
out of their rights as to be thoroughly incredulous of good faith 
among the pale-faces, made him an exception to their rooted dis- 
trust. " The white men are bad," said an aboriginal chief in his 
council speech, " and cannot dwell in the region of the Great 
Spirit, except Washington.''^ And Lord Brougham, in a series 
of analytical biographies of the renowned men of the last and 
present century, which indicate a deep study and philosophical 
estimate of human greatness, closes his sketch of Washington 
by the emphatic assertion, that the test of the progress of man- 
kind will be their appreciation of his character. 

Is not the absence of brilliant mental qualities one of the chief 
benefactions to man of W^ashington's example? He conspicu- 
ously illustrated a truth in the philosophy of life, often appre- 
ciated in the domestic circle and the intimacies of private society. 
but rarely in history, — the genius of character, the absolute 
efficiency of the will and the sentiments independently of extraor- 
dinary intellectual gifts. Not that these were not superior also 
in the man ; but it was through their alliance with moral energy, 
and not by virtue of any transcendent and intrinsic force in them- 
selves, that he was great. It requires no analytical insight to 
distinguish between the traits which insured success and renown 
to Washington, and those whereby Alexander, Caesar, and Napo- 
leon, achieved their triumphs ; and it is precisely because the 



28 THEPATRIOT. 

popular heart so clearly and universally beholds in the American 
hero the simple majesty of truth, the power of moral consistency, 
the beauty and grandeur of disinterestedness and magnanimity, 
that his name and fame are inexpressibly dear to humanity. 
Never before nor since has it been so memorably demonstrated 
that unselfish devotion and patient self-respect are the great 
reconciling principles of civic as well as of social and domestic 
life ; that they are the nucleus around which all the elements of 
national integrity, however scattered and perverted, inevitably 
crystallize ; that men thus severely true to themselves and duty 
become, not dazzling meteors to lure armies to victory, nor tri- 
umphant leaders to dazzle and win mankind to the superstitious 
abrogation of their rights, but oracles of public faith, represent- 
atives of w^hat is highest in our common nature, and therefore an 
authority wdiich it is noble and ennobling to recognize. The 
appellative so heartily, and by common instinct, bestow^ed upon 
Washington, is a striking proof of this, and gives a deep signifi- 
cance to the beautiful idea, that' Trovidence left him childless, 
that his country might call him — Father." 



THE MAN OF THE WORLD 

LORD CHESTERFIELD. 



There is an epithet, of frequent occurrence in the writings of 
Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, which suggests 
the nature of his philosophy of life ; it is the word shining, 
which he applies to oratory, character, and manners, with an 
ob\aous relish. We have the greatest faith in the significance of 
language, especially in regard to the habitual use of certain 
adjectiA^es as illustrative of individual opinions, temperament, and 
disposition. Brief sentences thickly interspersed with the first 
person singular form a style indicative of egotism ; dainty verbal 
quibbles, of effeminacy ; and a copious, prolonged, and emphatic 
combination of words seems equally native to a full and earnest 
mind. It may be a fanciful idea, — but this our experience fre- 
quently confirms, — that the constant use of the word designating 
a quality is an instinctive sign of its predominance in character. 
Chesterfield's ideal of excellence was essentially superficial ; for 
his praise of solid acquirement and genuine principles is always 
coupled with the assertion of their entire inutility if unaccom- 
panied by grace, external polish, and an agreeable manifestation. 
He omits all consideration of their intrinsic worth and absolute 
dignity ; their value to the individual, according to him, is wholly 
proportioned to his skill in using them in a social form. It is 
seeming, not being, he extols ; rhetoric, in his view, far transcends 
reflective power ; manners have more to do with human welfare 
than sentiment, and tact achieves more satisfactory conquests than 
3* 



30 THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 

truth ; it is not depth, elevation, or extent, the permanent qual- 
ities, but those of a temporary kind, that belong to the surface 
of life, upon which he relies. Accordingly, to shine in oratory, 
conversation, and behavior, is to realize the highest points both 
of nature and study ; the casual scintillation of reflected light is 
more attractive to him, because more dazzling to the eyes of tbe 
world, than that which is evolved from primal and indestructible 
sources. 

The eulogy of his biographer has, therefore, a literal justice 
when he says that Chesterfield was one of the most shining char- 
acters of the age. Thus we might be content that it should pass 
in a mere gallery of traditionary portraits. But the theory upon 
which it was based, and the system according to which it was 
formed, have been elaborately unfolded by Chesterfield himself 
with epistolary art ; and, although he never designed publicly to 
advocate them, yet the fact that his letters have been not only 
for many years a manual of deportment, his name a synonym for 
attractive elegance, and his writings, within a short time, revised 
and edited by an English historian,* is sufficient reason for apply- 
ing to him, and the school he proverbially represents, the test of 
that impartial scrutiny, challenged by whatever practically acts 
upon society, and exercises more or less prescriptive influence. 
Character may be divided into two great classes — the one based 
upon details, and the other upon general principle ; and all his- 
tory, as well as private experience, shows that elevated harmony 
and permanent influence belong only to the latter. And this is 
true of the various forms as well as the essential nature of char- 
acter. The philosopher difiers from the petit-inaitre. and the 
poet from the dilettante^ by virtue of the same law ; the view of 
the one being comprehensive, and the other minute. In art, also, 
we recognize true efficiency only where general effects are aptly 
seized and justly embodied : the artist of mere detail ranks only 
as a mechanician in form and color. But the most striking 
truth involved in these distinctions is. that the greater includes 
the less ; the man of great general principles in literature, art, 
or life, is, in point of fact, master of all essential details; he 
combines them at a glance, or, rather, they insensibly arrange 

Lord Mahon. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. 31 

themselves at his will ; he can afford to let them take care of 
themselves. The great sculptors and painters busied themselves 
only about the design and finish of their works, for intermediate 
details were wrought by their pupils ; and if the overseer, 
whether of domestic or public affairs, establish order and integ- 
rity as the principles of his establishment, he need not give his 
time or thoughts to the minutise of finance. 

If we apply this principle to social life, the sphere which 
Chesterfield regarded as the most important, a similar result is 
obvious. No one, even in that artificial world called society, 
ever achieved a satisfactory triumph by exclusive mastery of 
details. All that is involved in the term manners is demonstra- 
tive, symbolic — the sign or exponent of what lies behind, and is 
taken for granted; and only when this outward manifestation 
springs from an inward source — only when it is a natural pro- 
duct, and not a graft — does it sustain any real significance. 
Hence the absurdity of the experiment of Chesterfield to incul- 
cate a graceful address by maxims, and secure a winsome behavior 
by formal and minute directions ; as if to learn how to enter a 
room, bow well, speak agreeably to a lady, dispose of unoccupied 
hands, and go inoffensively through the other external details of 
social intercourse, were to insure the realization of a gentleman. 
That character — as it was understood in chivalry, by the old 
English dramatists, and according to the intelligent sentiment of 
mankind everywhere — is as much the product of natui'e as any 
other species of human development ; art modifies only its tech- 
nical details ; its spirit comes from blood more than breeding ; 
and its formula, attached by prescription to the body without 
analogous inspiration of the soul, is as awkward and inefficient as 
would be proficiency in military tactics to a coward, or vast philo- 
logical acquisitions to an idiot. Yet Chesterfield, with the obsti- 
nacy that belongs to the artificial race of men, persisted in his 
faith in detail, would not recognize the law from which all genuine 
social power is elaborated, and apparently lived and died in the 
belief that the art of pleasing was the great interest of life, and an 
absolute means of success and personal happiness. All his views, 
habits, and career, were impregnated with this artificial creed; 
phrenologically speaking, he was an incarnation of approbative- 



32 THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 

ness ; his zest of life came through this his predomiTiant organ ; 
and, judging from consciousness, he believed it to be the only one 
in others which could be universally appealed to. Unblinded by 
self-love, he had but to reflect upon his own experience to real- 
ize the fallacy of his doctrine. Everywhere, and always, he 
consulted explicitly the oracle of public opinion, and conformed 
to it with a fanaticism unworthy his intelligence. He confesses to 
the very son whom he strove with such zeal to make the "glass 
of fashion," that in college he was an absolute pedant, and 
thought great classical knowledge the test of all excellence; that, 
emancipated from the atmosphere of learning, and thrown among 
young men of fashion, he led a life of slavery by conforming to 
habits which were alien not only to his constitution and tastes, 
but even to his desires ; and that, in mature years, the requisi- 
tions of the beau monde held him in equal vassalage ; while his 
old age, we are told, " was cheerless and desolate." 

There are men who regard the artificial as a necessary evil in 
social life, w^hile they repudiate it altogether elsewhere ; but, in 
the case of Chesterfield, it was deliberately advocated as a gen- 
eral principle ; it influenced not only his theory of manners, but 
his literary taste, political opinions, and entire philosophy. Thus 
he laid aside the Anglo-Saxon direct and robust temper, and gave 
in so completely to French manners and superficiality, that, in 
Paris, he w^as considered one of themselves, and prides himself 
upon the distinction. In literature, the only branch which he 
thoroughly appreciated was oratory, and that chiefly for the 
rhetorical artifice to which it gives scope. Not as a noble inspira- 
tion founded on loyalty to instinctive sentiment, or urged for the 
cause of humanity, but as an elegant accomplishment whereby to 
exercise influence and gain applause, did Chesterfield cultivate 
oratory. It seems perfectly natural that he should excel in its 
studied graces, and equally so that such a cold virtuoso as Horace 
Walpole should have preferred him to Pitt. It is, too, not less 
characteristic of such a man that he should choose diplomacy as 
a profession. Believing, as he did, only in elegance and cun- 
ning, in politic self-control, veiled with agreeableness, the 
"smooth barbarity of courts" was admirably fitted at once to 
employ his ingenuity and gratify his refined selfishness. Thus 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. 33 

devoid of earnestness on the one hand, and wedded to artificial 
graces on the other, we cannot wonder that, in his view, Dante, 
the most intensely picturesque of poets, could not think clearl j ; 
and that Petrarch, the beautiful expositor of sentiment, should 
appear only a love-sick rhymer ; nor can we reasonably feel sur- 
prise that he quoted Rochefoucault and Cardinal de Retz with 
emphatic respect, while he could be only facetious in his allusions 
to Milton and Tasso. Macaulay, in alluding to Chesterfield's 
estimate of Marlborough and Cowper (the lawyer), says: "He 
constantly and systematically attributed the success of the most 
eminent persons of his age to then- superiority, not in solid abil- 
ities and acquirements, but in superficial graces of diction and 
manner." Among the books he most cordially recommends his 
son, are a treatise on the Art of Pleasing, and the '• Spectacle du 
Nature'" — the very titles of which reveal his dominant ideas: 
for the end of being, in his opinion, was to please, at what- 
ever sacrifice of honesty, comfort, or truth ; and nature to him 
was but a spectacle, as life itself T>'as a melodrama. He dis- 
trusted the motives of Fenelon, and thoudit Bolingbroke admi- 
rable. Even in more highly prized classical attainments, which 
we should imagine were endeared by personal taste, the same 
reference to external motive appears. He advises the study of 
Greek chiefly because it is a less common acquisition than Latin ; 
and the translation of striking passages of eloquence, as a means 
of forming style, and storing the mind with desirable quotations. 
Indeed, in his view, the process of culture, instead of an end, 
was a means, not to perfect or enrich the iudi\ddual character, 
but to obtain the requisites of social advancement. It is true he 
includes truth as essential to a gentleman : but this was the 
instmctive sentiment of his nation, whose manly energy and 
commercial probity alike repudiate falsehood. In accordance 
with his faith in the details of outward conduct, and obtuseness 
to the influence of the great natural laws of character in their 
social agency, Chesterfield advocated power over others as the 
lever by which to move away the impediments to personal suc- 
cess ; not that legitimate power decreed by original superiority, 
and as certain in the end to regulate society as gravitation the 
planets : but a studious, politic, and artificial empire, won by 



34 T II E M A N F T II E W R L D . 

dissimuLition and attractiveness. In ur;i;ing this favorite theory 
upon his son, he seems to have been unconscious of the painful 
discipline involved in the process, the long and weary masquer- 
ade, and the incessant danger of losing, in a moment, the influence 
gained by months of sycophancy ; neither does he take into view 
the wholly unsatisfactory and untrustworthy nature of the rela- 
tions thus established ; and he fails to see the inevitable result of 
the short-sighted policy of detail, in the temporary sway thus 
acquired ; the permanent is sacrificed to the immediate, and, by 
addressing the most insatiable and capricious of human propensi- 
ties, his system entails not an hour, but a life, of social fawning. 
lie recommends the study of character in order to discover the 
ruling passion, and then a skilful use of its key-note in order to 
play upon the whole for private benefit ; forgetting that, as in the 
case of the indignant prince, a suspicion of such base friendship 
will lead to scorn and rejection : " Do you think I am easier to 
be played upon than a pipe ?" 

To this watchful observation he would have united a power to 
conceal our own emotions in order to orive no advantage to our 
companion, and a facility in appealing to self-love as the best 
means of throwing him off his guard. The temper, the opin- 
ions, the tastes, and even the most gentle and noble sentiments, 
are to be kept in uniform abeyance ; self-possession and adroit 
flattery are the two great requisites, in his view, for success in 
life ; distrust of others, the guarantee of personal safety ; and the 
art of pleasing, the science of the w^orld. History, philosophy, 
and the prevailing instincts of enlightened humanity, teach 
another lesson. These maxims, so often quoted as sagacious, are, 
in fact, extremely shallow : instead of seeing more deeply into 
human nature, Chesterfield only saw its superficial action. If 
there were no sphere for character but promiscuously filled, elegant 
drawing-rooms, no more stable hnv operating on society than 
fashion, and no method of acting on human affairs but that of 
diplomacy, such advice- would have a higher degree of signifi- 
cance. It applies to but few of the actual exigencies of life, and 
has reference only to partial interests. All men should be social 
adventurers, and all women aim exclusively at social distinction, 
to give any general utility to precepts like these. They are 



1 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. 85 

essentiallj temporary and occasional even when true, and utterly 
false when elevated into principles of action. Hence we deny 
Dr. Johnson's assertion that, setting the immorality of Chester- 
field's letters aside, they form the best manual for gentlemen. 
The character repudiates the term ; its elements are no more to be 
" set in a note-book " than the spirit of honor or the inspiration 
of art. The views of Chesterfield, practically carried out, would 
make a pedantic courtier or a courteous pedant : they trench too 
much upon the absolute qualities of manhood to leave substance 
enough in character upon which to rear enduring graces ; they 
omit frankness and moral courage, — two of the most attractive 
and com'OQanding of human attributes, — and substitute an elegant 
chicanery, incompatible with self-respect, upon which the highest 
grace of manner rests ; their logic is that of intrigue, not of 
reason ; their charms are those of the dancing-master, not of the 
knight. Their relation to a true philosophy of life is no more 
intimate than the concetti of the Italians to the highest poetry, 
or the scenery of a theatre to that of nature : for to cultivate 
grace of manners is not to supersede, but only to give expression 
to nature in a certain way : it is not imitation from without, but 
development from within. 

"For God's sake." writes Chesterfield, '"sacrifice to the 
graces ; keep out of all scrapes and quarrels : know all ceremo- 
nies ; maintain a seeming frankness, but a real reserve ; have 
address enough to refuse without offending ; some people are to be 
reasoned, some flattered, some intimidated, and some teased into a 
thing." By his own statement, this course secured him only a 
life of refined servitude and a desolate old age, for the official 
dignity he enjoyed was pettishly abandoned from disappointment 
as to its incidental benefits. It is not, however, in a moral, but 
in» a philosophical view, as a question of enlightened self-interest, 
that we demur to the authenticity of his doctrine. Its real defect 
is narrowness, the exaggeration of certain principles of action, an 
inharmonious view of the relation between character and behavior, 
an undue importance attached to secondary interests — in a word, 
an artificial system in absolute contradiction to prevalent natural 
laws ; and it is chiefly worthy of refutation, because, instead of 
being advanced as a judicious formula in specific instances, or 



36 THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 

details of conduct to be acquired once and liabitually exer- 
cised afterwards, it is presented as a great leading principle, 
and a regular system altogether expedient and universally appli- 
cable ; which can be true of no theory either in literature, art, or 
life, which is based on mere dexterity and address : for Jesuitism 
can no more permanently advance the interests of society than it 
can those of religion, science, or any real branch of human 
welfare. 

Chesterfield's editor dwells upon his classical learning, and his 
benevolent policy while Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, where his 
rule is declared to have been second only, in its benign influence, to 
that of Lord Ormond ; but neither of these graces seenrs to have 
originated in a disinterested impulse. His acquisitions were 
chiefly valued as a means of display, and sources of an efficient 
culture ; and he advocated schools and villages to civilize the 
Highlands after the rebellion, instead of more cruel measures, 
because, on the whole, clemency was the most politic course to 
pursue. It was this barrenness of soul, this absence of manly 
enthusiasm, and fanatical reliance on the technical facilities of 
society, that deprive both the career and the precepts of Chester- 
field of all claim to cordial recognition. A friend may have 
spoken of him with literal truth when he declared that he pos- 
sessed " a head to contrive, a tonguQ to persuade, and a hand to 
execute " in masterly style what he attempted ; but the beauty 
and desirableness of these endowments are much lessened when 
we perceive that the exquisite machinery was set in motion by 
motives so entirely selfish, and its action regulated by views des- 
titute of intellectual scope and generous sympathies : when we 
hear the man thus gifted declare that "a never-failing desire to 
please " is the great incentive of his mind, and that the finest 
mental and moral qualities cannot win his love to one awkward 
or deformed. 

Chesterfield, like all votaries of detail, repeats himself contin- 
ually; he announces, with oracular emphasis, in almost every 
letter, proverbs of worldly wisdom and economical shrewdness, 
with an entire confidence in their sufficiency worthy of old Polo- 
nius, of which character he is but a refined prototype. The 
essence of these precepts is only a timid foresight utterly alien to 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. 87 

a noble spirit. What, for instance, can be more servile than the 
maxims, never to give the tone to conversation, but adopt it 
from the company, and that no business can be transacted with- 
out dissimulation ? Conformity and adaptation were his avowed 
means of success, the alpha and omega of his creed ; both 
useful and sometimes necessary alternatives in social intercourse, 
but always inferior and secondary, never primal and enduring. 
When allowed to supersede the loftier and more genuine instincts, 
they not only fetil of their end, but are absolutely incompatible 
with the character of a gentleman. Not by Such a course did 
Sidney, Kaleigh, Mackintosh, Robert Burns, or any one of 
nature's nobility, impress and win their fellow-creatures, but 
rather by ingenuous self-assertion, mellowed and harmonized by 
kindly and sympathetic feelings, that gave a grace '' beyond the 
reach of art " to their conversation and manners. 

But. Chesterfield's disloyalty to nature and devotion to artifice 
are more signally betrayed in his views of the two great 
sources of actual refinement in social life, music and women. 
The first may be considered as the natural language of the soul, 
the cultivation of which is one of the most available means of 
acquiring that harmonious development and sense of the beau- 
tiful, which round her angles and elicit the gentle influences of 
human intercourse. Chesterfield peremptorily forbade his son to 
cultivate music, at the same time that he strove to preach boor- 
ishness out of him by rules of breeding ; a process which might 
have been vastly facilitated by the study of any one of the fine 
arts for which he had the least tendency. But even in gallantry, 
— not to profane love by thus designating his idea of the relation 
of the sexes, — even in that which owes its zest and utility to 
gratified sympathies, he leans on the broken reed of prescription 
and expediency, counselling his son to choose a fair companion, not 
as a being to inspire, through natural aflinity, his sentiments and 
conduct, but as an approved model and guide in fashionable life. 
How little did this shrewd man of the world know of the benefit, 
even to the manners of an intelligent youth, derivable from even 
one reality in his social relations ! Indeed, from the affectionate 
disposition that appears to have belonged to Philip Stanhope, 
his good sense and general acquirements, the only chance for 



88 THE JSI A N OF THE WORLD. 

him to have realized his father's hopes, in point of expression, 
bearing, costume, address, and all the externals of character, 
would seem to have been a genuine attachment. He was so organ- 
ized as to be unable to attach that importance to the graces his 
father adored, which would lead him to court their favors : for 
this he needed the stimulus of a powerful motive, and such a 
one would have been naturally supplied by real devotion to a 
fine woman ; or the effect of such a feeling would have gradually 
softened and elevated his tone and air so that he would have 
become as insinuating as his elegant parent desired, and that, too, 
from instinct, and not by rule. The great evil of teaching the 
details of behavior is that, even wdien acquired in all their per- 
fection, there is a want of unity in the result ; they are exercised 
without the crowning grace of all manner, from the rhetorician's 
gesture to the courtier's salutations — unconsciousness. There 
is no happy fusion between manhood and manner ; the one 
hangs objectively on the other, like two parts of an ill-adjusted 
machine. 

Nature is apt to vindicate herself upon the ultra-conventional 
by entailing disappointment upon their dearest hopes. Her 
laws are as inexorable as they are benign. Chesterfield seems to 
have been more in earnest in the education of his son than in any 
other object in life ; but true parental affection had little to do 
with this assiduity ; he constantly reminds him that he has no 
weak attachment to his person, that his pecuniary supplies 
depend upon the respect paid to the instruction he receives, and 
that the estimation he will hereafter enjoy from his father, will 
depend upon the degree in which he realizes the expectations 
formed of him. In all this we see only a modification of self- 
love, but no true parental feeling. The object of all this solici- 
tude w^ell repaid the care lavished upon his mental cultivation, 
but he never became either elegant or fiiscinating ; his good 
qualities w^ere solid, not shining, and his advancement was owing 
to his father's personal influence. The latter' s will is character- 
istic ; he provides that, if his son ever engages in the vulgar 
amusement of horse-racing, he shall forfeit five thousand pounds 
to the Dean of Westminster, who is satirized in the compliment ; 
for Chesterfield thought himself overcharged by him in a pecu- 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. 39 

niarj transaction, and wished to leave this evidence of his reliance 
upon his grasping disposition. 

During his life, a high position and good sense enabled Ches- 
terfield to reap advantages from polished and sagacious urbanity, 
which naturally led to an exaggerated estimate of its value under 
less auspicious circumstances. Having studied with marked suc- 
cess at Cambridge, through the influence of a relative, he was 
appointed gentleman of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, 
and afterwards elected to Parliament by the borough of St. Ger- 
main in Cornwall. His first speech established a reputation for 
oratory, and is described as quite as remarkable for able reasoning 
as for ele2;ant diction. He seems to have retained the o-ood 

O CD 

opinion thus acquired while in the House of Lords ; to his father's 
seat in which assembly he duly succeeded. His judicious man- 
agement while ambassador to Holland, in 1728, saved Hanover 
from a war, and, for this service, he was made knight of the 
Garter. Subsequently he filled, with apparent success, the 
offices of Lord Steward of the Household in George the Second's 
reign, Lord Lieutenant of L'eland, and Secretary of State. Upon 
resigning the seals, he retired from public life, and deafness soon 
confined him to books and a small circle of acquaintance. The 
'prestige of official rank, and the allurements of an elegant address, 
having passed away with his life, we .must turn from the orator 
and statesman to the author for authentic evidence of his charac- 
ter. His -fate in this regard is somewhat curious. The elaborate 
speeches and sketches of character which he gave to the public 
have, in a great measure, lost their significance. The style of 
writing has so much advanced since his time that we recognize in 
him no such claims to literary excellence as his cotemporar-ies 
awarded. His name is now almost exclusively associated Avith 
his letters to his natural son — letters written in the most entire 
parental confidence, and with the vain hope of converting, by 
specific instructions, an awkward and apparently honest-hearted 
and sensible fellow into an accomplished, winsome, and shrewd 
man of the world. It has been said, in excuse fisr the absolute 
stress laid upon external qualities in these letters, that the youth 
to whom they were addressed was lamentably deficient in these 
respects ; but there can be no doubt that they form the most 



40 THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 

genuine expression of Chesterfield's mind — the more so that 
they were never intended for the public eye. By a not uncom- 
mon fortune in literary ventures, these estrays and waifs of private 
correspondence alone keep alive the name and perpetuate the 
views of Chesterfield. 

It would be unjust not to ascribe the worldly spirit and absence 
of natural enthusiasm in these epistles, in a degree, to the period 
that gave them birth. It was an age when intrigue prospered, 
and wit, rather than sentiment, was in vogue. There was a 
league between letters and politics, based wholly on party inter- 
ests. It was the age of Swift, Pope, and Bolingbroke. The 
queen governed George the Second, Lady Yarmouth the queen, 
and Chesterfield, for a time. Lady Yarmouth. Agreeable con- 
versation, an insinuating manner, and subtlety of observation, 
were then very efiicient weapons. High finish, point, verbal 
felicity, the costume rather than the soul of literature, won the 
day. Neither the frankness and undisguised overflow of thought 
and feeling that mark the Shakspearian era, nor the earnest utter- 
ance and return to truth ushered in by the first French Revolu- 
tion, existed ; but, on the contrary, that neutral ground between 
the two periods, whereon there was the requisite space, leisure, 
and absence of lofty purpose, to give full scope to the courtier, 
the wit, and the intriguante. It was, comparatively speaking, a 
timid, time-serving, partisan, and showy epoch. The spirit of the 
times is caught up and transmitted in Horace Walpole's letters, 
and quite as significantly embodied, in a less versatile manner, in 
those of Chesterfield. 

Instead, therefore, of regarding courteous manners as a mere 
necessary appendage to a man, — a convenient and appropriate 
facility, like current coin, or the laws of the land, — Chesterfield 
attempts to elevate them into the highest and most comprehensive 
practical significance. He would have manner overlay individu- 
ality, and goes so far as to declare that a soldier is a brute, a 
scholar a pedant, and a philosopher a cynic, without good breed- 
ing. If, for the latter term, feeling were substituted, those and 
similar broad inferences would be far more correct. Some of the 
greatest brutes, cynics, and pedants, we encounter in the world, 
are perfectly well-bred ; they refuse an act of humanity with a 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. 41 

graceful bow, smile good-naturedlv while exposing the ignorance 
of a sensitive companion, and engross, with an affable and even 
respectful air, all the privileges at hand. It is common to see a 
Frenchman salute, in the most polite manner, those who enter .a 
public conveyance, pass round his snuff-box, and entertain the com- 
pany with agreeable remarks : but, if it suits his pleasure, he will, 
at the same time, gormandize a reeking 'patd^ put on his nightcap 
and snore, or refuse to yield his seat to an invalid, with a com- 
placent egotism that would astonish an American backwoodsman, 
who, without a particle of monsieur's external courtesy, obeys 
the laws of chivalric kindness from instinct and habit. " The 
understanding is the voiture of life," says Chesterfield, and, 
apparently, he infers that it is to be put at random on amy track, 
and to move at any speed, which the will of the elegant majority 
dictate : an axiom' wholly at variance with that independence 
which some oae has nobly declared to be the positive sign of a 
gentleman. Absence of mind in company, so often the indication 
of superiority, he considered only as evidence of weakness ; and 
so enervated was his taste that he preferred the cold proprieties 
of the artificial French stage to the violated unities of robust 
English tragedy. It is characteristic of such a man to believe in 
chance more than truth : and his unconquerable love of play 
accotds with the blind philosophy that controlled his life. His 
conceit of knowledge of human nature was based upon the most 
inadequate and one-sided observation ; he associated chiefly with 
women of fashion and men of state, and, therefore, saw the calcu- 
lating and vain, not the impulsive and unconscious play of char- 
acter. For the game of conventional life, therefore, are the best 
of his maxims adapted. In that latent sphere of truth and 
nature, familiar to more ingenuous and genial spirits, where 
candor, intelligent sympathy, and spontaneous taste luxuriate, 
they are as irrelevant as they are unnatural. 
4* 



THE PIONEER 

DANIEL BOONE. 



There hung, for many months, on the walls of.the Art-Union 
gallery in Ne^Y York, a picture so thoroughly national in its 
sui)ject and true to nature in its execution, that it was refreshing 
to contemplate it, after being wearied with far more ambitious 
yet less successful attempts. It represented a flat ledge of rock, 
the summit of a high cliif that projected over a rich, umbrageous 
country, upon which a band of hunters, leaning on their rifles,- 
were gazing with looks of delighted surprise. The foremost, a 
compact and agile, though not very commanding figure, is point- 
ing out ttie landscape to his comrades, with an air of exultant 
yet calm satisfaction ; the wind lifts his thick hair from a brow 
full of energy and perception ; his loose hunting-shirt, his easy 
attitude, the fresh brown tint of his cheek, and an ingenuous, 
cheerful, determined, yet benign expression of countenance, pro- 
claim the hunter and pioneer, the Columbus of the woods, the 
forest philosopher and brave champion. The picture represents 
Daniel Boone discovering to his companions the fertile levels of 
Iventucky. This remarkable man, although he does not appear 
to have originated any great phms, or borne the responsibility of 
an appointed leader in the warlike expeditions in which he was 
engaged, possessed one of those rarely balanced natures, and that 
unpretending efficiency of character, which, though seldom 
invested with historical prominence, abound in personal interest. 
Wilhout political knowledge, he sustained an infant settlement ; 



DANIELBOONE. 43 

destitute of a military education, he proved one of the most for- 
midable antagonists the Indians ever encountered ; with no pre- 
tensions to a knowledge of civil engineering, he laid out the first 
road through the wilderness of Kentucky ; unfamiliar with books, 
he reflected deeply, and attained to philosophical convictions that 
yielded him equanimity of mind ; devoid of poetical expression, 
he had an extraordinary feeling for natural beauty, and described 
his sensations and emotions amid the wild seclusion of the forest 
as prolific of delight ; with manners entirely simple and unobtru- 
sive, there was not the least rudeness in his demeanor : and, 
relentless in fight, his disposition w^as thoroughly humane : his 
rifle and his cabin, with the freedom of the woods, satisfied his 
wants : the sense of insecurity, in which no small portion of his 
life was passed, only rendered him circumspect ; and his trials 
induced a serene patience and fortitude ; while his love of adven- 
ture was a ceaseless inspiration. Such a man forms an admira- 
ble progenitor in that nursery of character, the West ; and a 
fine contrast to the development elsewhere induced by the spirit 
of trade and political ambition. Like the rudely sculptured calu- 
mets picked up on the plantations of Kentucky, — memorials of a 
primitive race, whose mounds and copper utensils yet attest a 
people antecedent to the Indians that fled before the advancing 
settlements of Boone. — his character indicates, for the descend- 
ants of the hunters and pioneers, a brave, independent, and noMe 
ancestry. Thus, as related to the diverse forms of a national 
character in the various sections of the country, as well as on 
account of its intrinsic attractiveness, the western .pioneer is an 
object of peculiar interest ; and the career of Boone is alike dis- 
tinguished for its association with romantic adventure and histori- 
cal fact. 

A consecutive narrative, however, would yield but an inefiect- 
ive picture of his life as it exists in the light of sympathetic 
reflection. The pioneer, like the mariner, alternates between 
long uneventful periods and moments fraught with excitement ; 
the forest, like the ocean, is monotonous as well as grand ; and 
its tranquil beauty, for weeks together, may not be sublimated 
by terror : yet in both spheres there is an under-current of sug- 
gestive life, and w^hen the spirit of conflict and vigilance sleeps, 



44 THEPIONEER. 

that of contemplation is often alive. Perhaps it is this very suc- 
cession of "moving accidents" and lonely quiet, of solemn 
repose and intense activity, that constitutes the fascination which 
the sea and the wilderness possess for imaginative minds. They 
appeal at once to poetical and heroic instincts ; and these are 
more frequently combined in the same individual than we 
usually suppose. Before attempting to realize the characteris- 
tics of Boone in their unity, we must note the salient points in 
his experience ; and this . is best done by reviving a few scenes 
which typify the whole drama. 

It is midnight in the forest ; and, through the interstices of its 
thickly-woven branches, pale moonbeams glimmer on the emerald 
sward. The only sounds that break upon the brooding silence 
are an occasional gust of wind amid the branches of the loftier 
trees, the hooting of an owl, and sometimes the wild cry of a 
beast disappointed of his prey, or scared by the dusky figure 
of a savage on guard at a watch-fire. Beside its glowing embers, 
and leaning against the huge trunk of a gigantic hemlock, sit 
two girls, whose complexion and habiliments indicate their Anglo- 
Saxon origin ; their hands are clasped together, and one appears 
to sleep as her head rests upon her companion's shoulder. They 
are very pale, and an expression of anxiety is evident in the very 
firmness of their resigned looks. A slight rustle in the thick 
undergrowth, near their camp, causes the Indian sentinel to rise 
quickly to his feet and peer in the direction of the sound : a 
moment after he leaps up, with a piercing shout, and falls bleed- 
ing upon the ground, while the crack of a rifle echoes through 
the wood. In an instant twenty Indians spring from around the 
fire, raise the war-whoop, and brandish their tomahawks ; but 
three or four instantly drop before the deadly aim of the invad- 
ers, several run howling with pain into the depths of the forest, 
and the remainder set ofi" on an opposite trail. Then calmly, but 
with an earnest joy, revealed by the dying flames upon his feat- 
ures, a robust, compactly-knit figure moves with a few hasty 
strides towards the females, gazes eagerly into their faces, lifts 
one in his arms and presses her momentarily to his breast, gives 
a hasty order, and his seven companions with the three in their 
midst rapidly retrace their way over the tangled brushwood and 



DANIELBOONE. 45 

amid the pillared trunks, until they come out, at dawn, upon a 
clearing, studded with enormous roots, among which waves the 
tasselled maize, beside a spacious log-dwelling surrounded by a 
palisade. An eager, tearful group rush out to meet them : and 
the weary and hungry band are soon discussing their midnight 
adventure over a substantial breakfast of game. Thus Boone 
rescued his daughter and her friend, when they were taken cap- 
tive by the Indians, within sight of his primitive dwelling ; — an 
incident which illustrates, more than pages of description, how 
closely pioneer presses upon savage life, and with what peril 
civilization encroaches upon the domain of nature. 

It is the dawn of a spring day in the wilderness. As steals the 
gray pearly light over the densely-waving tree-tops, an eagle 
majestically rises from a withered bough, and floats through the 
silent air, becoming a mere speck on the sky ere he disappeai-s 
over the distant mountains ; dew-drops are condensed on the green 
threads of the pine and the swollen buds of the hickory ; pale 
bulbs and spears of herbage shoot from the black "loam, amid the 
decayed leaves ; in the inmost recesses of the wood the rabbit's 
tread is audible, and the chirp of the squirrel. 

As the sunshine expands, a thousand notes of birds at work on 
their nests invade the solitude ; the bear fearlessly laps the run- 
ning stream, and the elk turns his graceful head from the 
pendent branch he is nibbling, at an unusual sound from the 
adjacent cane-brake. It is a lonely man rising from his night 
slumber ; with his blanket on his arm and his rifle grasped in one 
hand, he approaches the brook and bathes his head and neck ; 
then, glancing around, turns aside the interwoven thickets near 
by, and climbs a stony mound shadowed by a fine clump of oaks, 
where stands an humble but substantial cabin ; he lights a fire 
upon the flat stone before the entrance, kneads a cake of maize, 
while his venison steak is broiling, and carefully examines the 
priming of his rifle. The meal despatched with a hearty relish, 
he closes the door of his lodge, and saunters through the wilder- 
ness ; his eye roves from the wild flower at his feet, to the cliff 
that looms afar oS"; he pauses in admu'ation before some venerable 
sylvan monarch ; watches the bounding stag his intrusion has 



46 T II E r I N E E R . 

disturbed, or cuts a little spmy from the sassafras with the knife 
in his giidle. 

As the sun rises hif^her, lie penetrates deeper into the vast 
and beautiful forest ; each form of vegetable life, from the enor- 
mous fun^i to the delicate vine-Avreath. the varied structure of 
the trees, the cries and motions of the -wild animals and birds, 
excite in his mind a delightful sense of infinite power and beauty ; 
he feels as he walks, in every nerve and vein, the '-glorious priv- 
ilege of being independent ; " reveries, that bathe his soul in a 
tranquil yet lofty pleasure, succeed each other ; and the sight of 
some lovely vista induces him to lie down upon a heap of dead 
leaves and lose himself in contemplation. Weariness and hunger, 
or the deepening gloom of approaching night, at length warn him 
to retrace his steps ; on the way he shoots a wild turkey for his 
supper, sits over the watch-fire, beneath the solemn firmament 
of stars, and recalls the absent and loved through the first 
watches of the night. Months have elapsed since he has thus 
lived alone in the wilderness, his brother having left him to seek 
ammunition and provision at distant settlements. Despondency, 
for a while, rendered his loneliness oppressive, but such is his love 
of nature and freedom, his zest for life in the woods, and a natui'al 
self-reliance, that gradually he attains a degree of happiness 
which De Foe's hero might have envied. Nature is a benign 
mother, and whispers consoling secrets to attentive ears, and 
mysteriously cheers the heart of her pure votaries who truthfully 
cast themselves on her bosom. 

Not thus serenely, however, glides away the forest life of our 
•pioneer. He is jealously watched by the Indians, upon whose 
hunting-grounds he is encroaching ; they steal upon his retreat 
and make him captive, and in this situation a new phase of his 
character exhibits itself. The soul that has been in long and inti- 
mate communion w^ith natural grandeur and beauty, and learned 
the scope and quality of its OAvn resources, gains self-possession 
and foresight. The prophets of old did not resort to the desert in 
vain : and the bravery and candor of hunters and seamen is partly 
the result of the isolation and hardihood of their lives. Boone 
excelled as a sportsman : he won the respect of his savage captors 
by his fe^kill and fortitude ; and more than once, without violence. 



DANIELBOONE. 47 

emancipated himself, revealed their bloody schemes to his coun- 
trymen, and met them on the battle-field, with a coolness and 
celerity that awoke their intense astonishment. Again and 
again he saw his companions fall before their tomahawks and 
rifles : his daughter, as we have seen, was stolen from his very 
door, though fortunately rescued : his son fell before his eyes in 
a conflict with the Indians who opposed their emigration to Ken- 
tucky ; his brother and his dearest friends were victims either to 
their strategy or violence ; and his own immunity is to be 
accounted for by the influence he had acquired over his foes, 
which induced them often to spare his life — an influence derived 
from the extraordinary tact, patience, and facility of action, which 
his experience and character united to foster. 

Two other scenes of his career are requisite to the picture. 
On the banks, of the Missouri river, less than forty years ago, 
there stood a few small rude cabins in the shape of a hollow 
square. In one of these the now venerable figure of the gallant 
hunter is listlessly stretched upon a couch ; a slice of buck, twisted 
on the ramrod of his rifle, is roasting by the fire, within reach 
of his hand; he is still alone, but the surrounding cabins are 
occupied by his thriving descendants. The vital energies of the 
pioneer are gradually ebbing away, though his thick white locks, 
well-knit frame, and the light of his keen eye, evidence the genu- 
ineness and prolonged tenure of his life. Overmatched by the 
conditions of the land law in Kentucky, and annoyed by the 
march of civilization in the regions he had known in their primi- 
tive beauty, he had wandered here, fir from the state he founded 
and the haunts of his manhood, to die, with the same adventurous 
and independent spirit in which he had lived. He occupied some 
of the irksome hours of confinement incident to age in polishing 
his own cherry-wood coflin : and it is said he was found dead in 
the woods at last, a few rods from his dwelling. 

On an autumn day, but a few years since, a hearse might have 
been seen winding up the main street of Frankfort, Kentucky, 
drawn by white horses, and garlanded with evergreens. The 
pall-bearers comprised some of the most distinguished men of the 
state. It was the second funeral of Daniel Boone. By an act 
of the legislature, his remains were removed from the banks of 



48 T II E P I N E E R . 

the Missouri to the public cemetery of the capital of Kentucky, 
and there deposited with every ceremonial of respect and love. 

This oblation was in the highest degree just and appropriate, 
for the name of Boone is identified with the state he originally 
explored, and his character associates itself readily with that of 
her people and scenery. No part of the country is more indi- 
vidual in these respects than Kentucky. As the word imports, 
it was once the hunting and battle ground of savage tribes for 
centuries; and not until the middle of the eighteenth century 
was it well known to Anglo-Saxon explorers. The elk and buf- 
falo held undisputed possession with the Indian ; its dark forests 
served as a contested boundary between the Cherokees, Creeks, 
and Catawbas, of the South, and the Shawnees, Delawares, and 
Wyandots, of the North ; and to these inimical tribes it was indeed 
'' a dark and bloody ground." 

Unauthenticated expeditions thither we hear of before that of 
Boone, but wnth his first visit the history of the region becomes 
clear and progressive, remarkable for its rapid and steady progress 
and singular fortunes. The same year that independence was 
declared, Virginia made a county of the embryo state, and forts 
scattered at intervals over the face of the country alone yielded 
refuge to the colonists from their barbarian invaders. In 1778, 
Duquesne, with his Canadian and Indian army, met with a 
vigorous repulse at Boonesborough ; in 1778, occurred Roger 
Clark's brilliant expedition against the English forts of Yincennes 
and Kaskaskias ; and the next year, a single blockhouse — the 
forlorn hope of advancing civilization — was erected by Robert 
Patterson where Lexington now stands ;. soon after took place the 
unfortunate expedition of Col. Bowman against the Indians of 
Chillicothe ; and the Virginian legislature passed the celebrated 
land law. This enactment neglected to provide for a general 
survey at the expense of the government ; each holder of a war- 
rant located therefore at pleasure, and made his own survey ; yet 
a special entry was required by the law, in order clearly to desig- 
nate boundaries; the vagueness of many entries rendered the 
titles null ; those of Boone, and men similarly unacquainted with 
legal writing, were, of course, destitute of any accuracy of 
description; and hence, interminable perplexity, disputes, and 



DANIELBOONE. 49 

forfeitures. The immediate consequence of the law, however, 
was to induce a flood of emigration, and the fever of hind specu- 
lation rose and spread to an unexampled height : to obtain patents 
for rich lands became th*e ruling passion; and simultaneous 
Indian hostilities prevailed — so that Kentucky was transformed, 
all at once, from an agricultural and hunting region, thinly 
peopled, to an arena where rapacity and war swayed a vast multi- 
tude. The conflicts, law-suits, border adventures, and personal 
feuds, growing out of this condition of afiairs, would yield memo- 
rable themes, without number, for the annalist. To this epoch 
succeeded " a labyrinth of conventions." 

The position of Kentucky was anomalous : the appendage of a 
state unable to protect her frontier from savage invasion ; her 
future prosperity in a great measure dependent upon the glorious 
river that bounded her domain, and the United States government 
already proposing to yield the right of its navigation to a foreign 
power ; separated by the Alleghany Mountains from the populous 
and cultivated East, and the tenure by which estates were held 
within its limits quite unsettled, it is scarcely to be wondered at 
that reckless political adventurers began to bok upon Kentucky 
as a promising sphere for their intrigues. Without adverting to 
any particular instances, or renewing the inquiry into the motives 
of prominent actors in those scenes, it is interesting to perceive 
how entirely the intelligence and honor of the people triumphed 
over selfish ambition and cunning artifice. Foreign governments 
and domestic traitors failed in their schemes to alienate the isolated 
state from the growing confederacy. Repulsed as she was again 
and again in her attempts to secure constitutional freedom, she 
might have said to the parent government, with the repudiated 
'' lady wedded to the Moor " -^ 

" Unkindness may do much. 
And your unkindness may achieve my life, 
But never taint my love." 

Kentucky was admitted into the Union on the fourth of Feb- 
ruary, 1791. 

From this outline of her history we can readily perceive how 
rich and varied was the material whence has sprung the Western 
5 



50 TIIEPIONEER. 

character. Its highest phase is doubtless to Ijc found in Kentucky ; 
and there, perhaps, best illustrates American in distinction from 
European civilization. In the North this is essentially modified 
by the cosmopolite influence of the seaboard, and in the South, 
by a climate which assimilates the people with those of the same 
latitudes elsewliere ; but in the West, and especially in Kentucky, 
we find the foundation of social existence laid by the hunters, 
whose love of the woods, equality of condition, habits of sport and 
agriculture, and distance from conventionalities, combined to 
nourish independence, strength of mind, candor, and a fresh and 
genial spirit. The ease and freedom of social intercourse, the 
abeyance of the passion for gain, and the scope given to the play 
of character, accordingly developed a noble race. 

AYe can scarcely imagine a more appropriate figure in the fore- 
ground of the picture than Daniel Boone, who embodies the 
honesty, intelligence, and chivalric spirit of the state. With a 
population descended from the extreme sections of the land, from 
emigrants of New England as well as Yirginia and North Caro- 
lina, and whose immediate progenitors were chiefly agricultural 
gentlemen, a generous and spirited character might have been 
prophesied of the natives of Kentucky; and it is in the highest 
degree natural for a people thus descended, and with such habits, 
to cling with entire loyalty to their parent government, and to 
yield, as they did, ardent though injudicious sympathy to France 
in the hour of her revolutionary crisis. Impulsive and honorable, 
her legitimate children belong to the aristocracy of nature ; with- 
out the general intellectual refinement of the Atlantic states, they 
possess a far higher physical development and richer social instii;cts; 
familiar with the excessive development of the religious and 
political sentiments, in all varieties and degrees, their views are 
more broad, though less discriminate, than those entertained in 
older communities. The Catholic from Maryland, the Puritan 
from Connecticut, and the Churchman of Carolina, amicably 
flourished toorether : and the conservative and fanatic are alike 

O J 

undisturbed; the convent and the camp-meeting being, often 
within sight of each other, equally respected. 

Nature, too, has been as liberal as the social elements in 

endowing Kentucky with interesting associations. That mys- 



DANIELBOONE. 51 

terious fifteen miles of subterranean wonders known as the Mam- 
moth Cave, — its wonderful architecture, fossil remains, nitrous 
atmosphere, echoes, fish with only the rudiment of an optic nerve, 
its chasms and cataracts, — is one of the most remarkable 
objects in the world. The boundaries of the state are unequalled 
in beauty ; on the east the Laurel Ridge or Cumberland Moun- 
tain, and on the west the Father of Waters. In native trees she 
is peculiarly rich; the glorious magnolia, the prolific sugar- 
tree, the laurel and the buckeye, the hickory and honey locust, 
the mulberry, ash, and flowing catalpa, attest in every village 
and roadside the sylvan aptitudes of the soil ; while the thick 
buffalo grass and finest crown-imperial in the world clothe it 
with a lovely garniture. The blue limestone formation predomi- 
nates, and its grotesque cliffs and caverns render much of the 
geological scenery peculiar and interesting. 

The lover of the picturesque and characteristic must often 
regret that artistic and literary genius has not adequately pre- 
served the original local and social features of our own primitive 
communities. Facility of intercourse and the assimilating influ- 
ence of trade are rapidly bringing the traits and tendencies of all 
parts of the country to a common level ; yet in the natives of each 
section, in whom strong idiosyncrasies have kept intact the original 
bias of character, we find the most striking and suggestive diver- 
sity. According to the glimpses afforded us by tradition, letters, 
and meagre biographical data, the early settlers of Kentucky 
united to the simplicity and honesty of the New York colonists a 
high degree of chivalric feeling ; there was an heroic vein induced 
by familiarity with danger, the necessity of mutual protection, and 
the healthful excitement of the chase. The absence of any marked 
distinction of birth or fortune, and the high estimate placed upon 
society by those who dwell on widely-separated plantations, caused 
a remarkably cordial, hospitable and warm intercourse to prevail, 
almost unknown at the North and East. Family honor was cher- 
ished with peculiar zeal ; and the women, accustomed to eques- 
trian exercises, and brought up in the freedom and isolation of 
nature, — their sex always respected, and their charms thoroughly 
appreciated, — acquired a spirited and cheerful development, quite 
in contrast with the subdued, uniform tone of those educated in 



62 T H E P I N E E R . 

the commercial towns. Their mode of life naturally generated 
self-reliance, and evoked a spirit of independence. 

Most articles in use were of domestic manufacture ; slavery was 
more patriarchal in its character than in the other states ; the 
practice of duelling, with its inevitable miseries, had also the 
effect to give a certain tone to social life rarely witnessed in agri- 
cultural districts ; and the Kentucky gentleman was thus early 
initiated into the manly qualities of a Nimrod, and the engaging 
and reliable ones of a man of honor and gallantry in its best 
sense. It is to circumstances like these that we attribute the 
chivalric spirit of the state. She was a somewhat wild member 
of the confederacy — a kind of spoiled younger child, witli the 
faults and virtues incident to her age and fortunes ; nerved by 
long vigils at the outposts of civilization, — the wild-cat invading 
her first school -houses, and the Indians her scattered corn-fields, 
— and receiving little parental recognition from the central gov- 
ernment, yet, with a primitive loyalty of heart, she repudiated the 
intrigues of Genet and Burr, and baptized her counties for such 
national patriots as Fulton and Gallatin. 

Passing through a fiery ordeal of Indian w^arfare, the fever of 
land speculation, great political vicissitude, unusual legal perplex- 
ities, imperfect legislation, and subsequently entire financial de- 
rangement, she has yet maintained a progressive and individual 
attitude ; and seems, in her most legitimate specimens of charac- 
ter, more satisfactorily to represent the national type than any 
other state. Her culture has not been as refined, nor her social 
spirit as versatile and elegant, as in older communities, but a raci- 
ness, hardihood and genial freshness of nature have, for those 
very reasons, more completely survived. As a region whence to 
transplant or graft, if we may apply horticultural terms to hu- 
manity, Kentucky is a rich garden. Nor have these distinctions 
ceased to be. Her greatest statesman, in the nobleness of his 
character and the extraordinary personal regard he inspired, 
admirably illustrates the community of which Boone was the 
characteristic pioneer ; and the volunteers of Kentucky, in the 
Indian wars, under Harrison, and more recently in Mexico, have 
continued to vindicate their birthright of valor ; while one of her 



DANIELBOOXE. 53 

most accomplished daughters sent a magnificent bed-quilt, wrought 
by Ler own hands, to the World's Fair. 

A Pennsjlvanian by birth.* Boone early emigrated to North 
Carolina. He appears to have first visited Kentucky in 1769. 
The bounty lands awarded to the Virginia troops induced survey- 
ing expeditions to the Ohio river : and when Col. Henderson, in 
1775, purchased from the Cherokees the country south of the 
Kentucky river, the knowledge which two years' exploration had 
given Boone of the region, and his already established reputation 
for firmness and adventure, caused him to be employed to survey 
the country, the fertility and picturesque charms of which had 
now become celebrated. Accordingly, the pioneer, having satis- 
factorily laid out a road through the wilderness, not without many 
fierce encounters' with the aborigines, chose a spot to erect his 
log house, which afterwards became the nucleus of a colony, and 
the germ of a prosperous state, on the site of the present town of 
Boonesborough. 

While transporting his family thither, they were surprised by 
the Indians, and, after severe loss, so fir discouraged in their 
enterprise as to return to the nearest settlements : and on the first 
summer of their residence in Kentucky occurred the bold abduc- 
tion of the two young girls, to which we have previously referred. 
In 1778, while engaged in making salt, with thirty men, at the 
lower Blue Licks, Boone was captured, and, while his companions 
were taken to Detroit on terms of capitulation, he was retained as 
a prisoner, though kindly treated and allowed to hunt. At Chil- 
licothe he witnessed the extensive preparations of the Indians to 
join a Canadian expedition against the infant settlement ; and, 
effecting his escape, succeeded in reaching home in time to warn 
the garrison and prepare for its defence. For nine days he was 
besieged by an army of five hundred Indians and whites, when 
the enemy abandoned their project in despair. 

* In a paper recently presented to the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Mr. 
John F. Watson demonstrates that Daniel Boone was a native of Pennsylvania, 
and that his fiimily were Quakers. Several of its members were " read out of 
meeting " in consequence of marrying outside the pale. The fact of Daniel's 
place of birth is now doubly settled, by a veritable chronicler, and by Sparks' 
American Biography. Mr. Watson makes the county Berks, and Sparks names 
it Bucks — both of which are in the same state. 
5* 



54 TIIEPIONEER. 

In 1782 he was engaged in the memorable and disastrous bat- 
tle of the Blue Licks, and accompanied Gen. Clark on his expe- 
dition to avenge it. In the succeeding year, peace with England 
being declared, the pioneer saw the liberty and civilization of the 
country he had known as a wilderness, only inhabited by wild 
beasts and savages, guaranteed and established. In 1779, having 
laid out the chief of his little property in land warrants, on his 
way from Kentucky to Richmond he was robbed of twenty thou- 
sand dollars; wiser claimants, versed in the legal conditions, 
deprived him of .his lands ; disappointed and impatient, he left 
the glorious domain he had originally explored and nobly de- 
fended, and became a voluntary subject of the King of Spain, by 
making a new forest home on the banks of the Missouri. An 
excursion he undertook, in 1816, to Fort Osage, a hundred miles 
from his lodge, evidences the unimpaired vigor of his declining 
years. 

So indifferent to gain was Boone that he neglected to secure a 
fine estate rather than incur the trouble of a visit to New Or- 
leans. An autograph letter, still extant, proves that he was not 
illiterate ; and Governor Dunmore, of Virginia, had such entire 
confidence in his vigilance and integrity, that he employed him 
to conduct surveyors eight hundred miles through the forest, to 
the falls of the Ohio, gave him command of three frontier stations, 
and sent him to negotiate treaties with the Cherokees. It was a 
fond boast with him that the first white women that ever stood on 
the banks of the Kentucky river were his wife and daughter, and 
that his axe cleft the first tree whose timbers laid the foundation 
of a permanent settlement in the state. He had the genuine ambi- 
tion of a pioneer, and the native taste for life in the woods embod- 
ied in the foresters of Scott and the Leather-stocking of Cooper. 
He possessed that restless impulse, — the instinct of adventure, — 
the poetry of action. It has been justly said that ''he was sel- 
dom taken by surprise, never shrunk from danger, nor cowered 
beneath exposure and fatigue." So accurate were his woodland 
observations and memory, that he recognized an ash-tree which 
he had notched twenty years before, to identify a locality ; and 
proved the accuracy of his designation by stripping off the new 
bark, and exposing the marks of his axe beneath. His aim was 



DANIELBOONE. 55 

SO certain, that he could with ease bark a squirrel, that is, bring 
down the animal, when on the top of the loftiest tree, by knock- 
ing off the bark immediately beneath, killing him by the concus- 
sion. 

The union of beauty and terror in the life of a pioneer, of so 
much natural courage and thoughtfulness as Boone, is one of its 
most significant features. We have followed his musing steps 
through the wide, umbrageous solitudes he loved, and marked the 
contentment he experienced in a log hut, and by a camp-fire ; but 
over this attractive picture there ever impended the shadow of 
peril, in the form of a stealthy and cruel foe, the wolf, disease, 
and exposure to the elements. Enraged at the invasion of their 
ancient hunting-grounds, the Indians hovered near ; while asleep 
in the jungle, following the plough, or at his frugal meal, the 
pioneer was liable to be shot down by an unseen rifle, and sur- 
rounded by an ambush ; from the tranquil pursuits of agriculture, 
at any moment, he might be summoned to the battle-field, to res- 
cue a neighbor's property, or defend a solitary outpost. The 
senses become acute, the mind vigilant, and the tone of feeling 
chivalric, under such discipline. That life has a peculiar dignity, 
even in the midst of privation, and however devoid of refined cul- 
ture, which is entirely self-dependent both for sustainment and 
protection. It has, too, a singular freshness and animation, the 
more genial from being naturally inspired. Compare the spas- 
modic efforts at hilarity, the forced speech, and hackneyed expres- 
sion, of the fashionable drawing-room, with the candid mirth and 
gallant spirit born of the woodland and the chase, — the power- 
ful sinews and well-braced nerves of the pioneer with the languid 
pulse of the metropolitan exquisite, — and it seems as if the 
fountain of youth still bubbled up in some deep recess of the 
forest. Philosophy, too, as well as health, is attainable in the 
woods, as Shakspeare has illustrated in '"As You Like It," and 
Boone by his example and habitual sentiments. He said to his 
brother, when they had lived for months in the yet unexplored 
wilds of Kentucky, " Yoii see how little human nature requires, 
it is in our own hearts, rather than in the things around us, that 
we are to seek felicity. A man may be happy in any state. It 
only asks a perfect resignation to the will of Providence." It is 



56 THE PIONEER. 

remarkable that the two American characters which chiefly inter- 
ested Byron were Patrick Henry and Daniel Boone, — the one 
for his gift of oratory, and the other for his philosophical content, 
— both so directly springing from the resources of nature. 

There is an affinity between man and nature, which conven- 
tional habits keep in abeyance, but do not extinguish. It is 
manifested in the prevalent taste for scenery, and the favor so 
readily bestowed upon its graphic delineation in art or literature; 
but, in addition to the poetic love of nature, as addressed to the 
sense of beauty, or that ardent curiosity to explore its laws and 
phenomena which finds expression in natural science, there is an 
instinct that leads to a keen relish of nature in her primeval 
state, and a facility in embracing the life she offers in her wild 
and solitary haunts; a feeling that seems to have survived the 
influences of civilization, and develops, when encouraged, by the 
inevitable law of animal instinct. It is not uncommon to meet 
with this passion for nature among those whose lives have been 
devoted to objects apparently alien to its existence. Sportsmen, 
pedestrians, and citizens of rural propensities, indicate its modi- 
fied action, while it is more emphatically exhibited by the volun- 
teers who join in the caravans to the Rocky Mountains, the 
deserts of the East, and the forests of Central and South Amer- 
ica,* with no ostensible purpose but the gratification arising 
from intimate contact with nature in her luxuriant or barren 
solitudes. 

To one having but an inkling of this sympathy, with a nervous 
organization and an observant mind, there is, indeed, no restora- 
tive of the frame, or sweet diversion to the mind, like a day in the 
woods. The effect of roaming a treeless plain, or riding over a 
cultivated region, is entirely different. There is a certain tran- 
quillity and balm in the forest, that heals and calms the fevered 
spirit, and quickeris the languid pulses of the weary and the dis- 
heartened with the breath of hope. Its influence on the animal 
spii'its is remarkable ; and the senses, released from the din and 
monotonous limits of streets and houses, luxuriate in the breadth 
of vision, and the rich variety of form, hue, and odor, which only 
scenes like these afford. As we walk in the shadow^ of lofty trees, 
the repose and awe of heart that breathes from a sacred temple 



DANIEL BOONE. 57 

gradually lulls the tide of care, and exalts despondency into wor- 
ship. As the eye tracks the flickering light glancing upon herb- 
age, it brightens to recognize the wild flowers that are associated 
■#ith the innocent enjoyments of childhood ; to note the delicate 
blossom of the wild hyacinth, see the purple asters wave in the 
breeze, and the scarlet berries of the winter-green glow among 
the dead leaves, or mark the circling flight of the startled crow, 
and the sudden leap of the squirrel. 

We pause unconsciously to feel the springy velvet of the moss- 
clump, pluck up the bulb of the broad-leaved sanguinaria, or 
examine the star-like flower of the liverwort ; and then, lifting our 
gaze to the canopy beneath which we lovingly stroll, greet, as 
old and endeared acquaintances, the noble trees in their autumn 
splendor, — the crimson dogwood, yellow hickory, or scarlet 
maple, whose, brilliant hues mingle and glow in the sunshine like 
the stained windows of an old gothic cathedral ; and we feel that 
it is as true to fact as to poetry that " the groves were God's first 
temples." Every fern at our feet is as daintily carved as the 
frieze of a Grecian column ; every vista down which we look 
wears more than Egyptian solemnity ; the withered leaves rustle 
like the sighs of penitents, and the lofty tree-tops send forth a 
voice like that of prayer. Fresh vines encumber aged trunks, 
solitary leaves quiver slowly to the earth, a twilight hue chastens 
the brightness of noon, and all around is the charm of a mys- 
terious quietude and seclusion that induces a dreamy and reve- 
rential mood ; while health seems wafted from the balsamic pine 
and the elastic turf, and over all broods the serene blue firma- 
ment. 

If such refreshment and inspiration are obtainable from a cas- 
ual and temporary visit to the woods, we may imagine the eSect 
of a lengthened sojourn in the primeval forest upon a nature 
alive to its beauty, wildness, and solitude ; and when we add to 
these the zest of adventure, the pride of discovery, and that feel- 
ing of sublimity which arises from a consciousness of danger 
always impending, it is easy to realize in the experience of a pio- 
neer at once the most romantic and practical elements of life. In 
American history, rich as it is in this species of adventure, no 
individual is so attractive and prominent as Daniel Boone. The 



58 THE PIONEER. 

singular union in his character of benevolence and hardihood 
bold activity and a meditative disposition, the hazardous enter- 
prises and narrow escapes recorded of him, and the resolute tact 
he displayed in all emergencies, are materials quite adequate % 
a thrilling narrative ; but when we add to the external phases of 
interest that absolute passion for forest life which distinguished 
him, and the identity of his name with the early fortunes of the 
West, he seems to combine the essential features of a genuine 
historical and thoroughly individual character. 



THE MAN OF LETTERS 

ROBERT SOUTHEY. 



The character of Southey, as revealed in his biography, is 
essentially that of a man of letters. Perhaps the annals of Eng- 
lish literature furnish no more complete example of the kind, in 
the most absolute sense of the term. His taste for books was of 
the most general description ; he sought every species of knowl- 
edge, and appears to have been equally contented to write his- 
tory, reviews, poems, and letters. Indeed, for more than twenty 
years his life at KesAvick was systematically divided between 
these four departments of writing. 

No man having any pretension to genius ever succeeded in 
reducing literature to so methodical and sustained a process. It 
went on with the punctuality and productiveness of a cotton mill 
or a nail factory ; exactly so much rhyming, collating, and proof- 
reading, and so much of chronicle and correspondence, in the 
twenty-four hours. We see Robert Southey, as he paints him- 
self, seated at his desk, in an old black coat, long worsted panta- 
loons and gaiters in one, and a green shade; and we feel the 
truth of his own declaration that this is his history. Occasion- 
ally he goes down to the river-side, behind the house, and throws 
stones until his arms ache, plays with the cat, or takes a mountain 
walk with the children. The event of his life is the publication 
of a book ; his most delightful hour that in which he sees the 
handsomely printed title-page that announces his long meditated 
work ready, at last, to be ushered in elegant attire before the 



60 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 

public ; his most pleasing excitement to read congratulatory let- 
ters from admiring friends, or an appreciative critique in a fresh 
number of the " Quarterly." * 

Minor pastimes he finds in devising literary castles in the air, 
projecting epics on suggestive and unused themes, giving here 
and there a finishing touch to sentence or couplet, possessing 
himself of a serviceable but rare tome, transcribing a preface 
with all the conscious dignity of authorship, or a dedication with 
the complacent zeal of a gifted friend. From the triple, yet har- 
monious and systematic life of the country, the study, and the 
nursery, we see him, at long intervals, depart for a visit to Lon- 
don, to confabulate with literary lions, greet old college friends, 
make new bargains with publishers, and become a temporary 
diner-out : or he breaks away from domestic and literary employ- 
ment in his retreat among the hills, for a rapid continental tour, 
during which not an incident, a natural fact, an historical remi- 
niscence, a political conjecture, or a wayside phenomenon, is 
allowed to escape him. Though wearied to the last degree, at 
nightfall he notes his experience Vv'ith care, as material for 
future use ; and hurries back, with presents for the children and 
a voluminous diary, to resume his pencraft ; until the advent of 
summer visitors obliges him to exchange a while the toils of 
authorship for the duties of hospitality. 

To these regularly succeeding occupations may be added the 
privileges of distinction, the acquisition of new and interesting 
friends, of testimonies of respect from institutions and private 
admirers ; and inevitable trials, such as occasional assaults from 
the critics, or a birth or bereavement in the household. Seques- 
tered and harmless we cannot but admit such a life to be, and, 
when chosen from native inclination, as desirable for the individ- 
ual as can be imagined, in a world where the vicissitude and care 
of active life are so apt to interfere with comfort and peace. At 
the age of thirty-two, when thus settled at Keswick, Southey 
gratefully estimated its worth in this point of view: '"This is 
my life, which, if it be not a very merry one, is yet as happy 
as heart could wish." 

♦Coleridge once said, "I can't ihi7tk of Southey without seeing him either 
mending or u^ing a pen." 



ROBERT SOUTHEY. 61 

Southey left a somewhat minute and very graphic sketch of his 
childhood, parts of which are written in his happiest vein. Some 
of the anecdotes are significant, but more as illustrations of char- 
acter than genius. He was bookish, moral, and domestic, inquir- 
ing, and observant ; but seems not to have exhibited any of that 
delight in the sense of wonder that kept the boy Schiller rocking 
in a tree to watch the lightning, or the generous ardor that made 
Byron a schoolboy champion, or the oppressive sensibility that 
weighed down the spirit of young life in Alfieri's breast. His 
autobiography, not less than his literary career, evinces the clever 
man of letters rather than the surpassing man of genius. It is 
characteristic of this that, between the ages of eight and twelve, 
he expressed the conviction that "it was the easiest thing in the 
world to write a play." Such is the natural language of talent; 
that of genius would be, " it is the greatest thing in the world." 

The most effective portrait in the part of his memoirs written 
by himself is that of his Aunt Tyler. It is evidently drawn from 
the life, and would answer for a character in the very best class 
of modern novels. As a revelation of himself, the most excellent 
traits^re the disposition, spirit, and state of feeling displayed. 
Southey obviously possessed steady affections, self-respect, and a 
natural sense of duty. The embryo reformer is indicated by his 
essay against flogging in school ; and no better proof of his relia- 
bility can be imagined than the fiict that several of his earliest 
friendships continued unabated throughout life. His sketches of 
teachers, classmates, and the scenes of boyhood, are pleasing, 
natural, and authentic. 

Like most literary men, Southey in youth took an interest in 
science, and dabbled in botany and entomology ; but he soon aban- 
doned insects and flowers, except for purposes of metaphor. His 
education, too, like that of the majority of professed authors, was 
irregular.- versatile, and unexact, vibrating between the study of 
text-books in a formal, and the perusal of chosen ones in a relish- 
ing manner. His love of the quaint in expression, his taste for 
natural history, church lore, ballads, historic incident, and curious 
philosophy, are richly exemplified in the specimens of the " Com- 
mon-place Book," recently published, and especially in that frag- 
mentary, but most suggestive work, "The Doctor;" and these 



62 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 

but carry out the aims and tastes foreshadowed in his youthful 
studios. 

Marked out by natural tastes for a life of books, we recognize 
the instinct in the delight he experienced when first possessed of 
a set of Newberry's juvenile publications, the"zest with which he 
wrote school themes, invented little dramas, and fraternized with 
a village editor, not less than in its mature development, when 
taking the shape of beautiful quartos with the imprimatur of 
Murray or the Longmans. The sight of a fair finished page 
of his first elaborate metrical composition, ''Joan of Arc," he 
acknowledges infected him with the true author mania, and 
henceforth he was only happy over pencraft or typography. 

In his memoirs we find new evidence of the laws of mind and 
health, and the fatal consequences of their infringement. To 
Southey's kind activity we are indebted for a knowledge of the 
most affecting instance in English literature of early genius pre- 
maturely lost, that of Kirke White ; and two other cases of 
youthful aspiration for literary honor blighted by death were 
confided to his benevolent sympathy ; but the great intellectual 
promise, rapid development, and untimely loss of his son^is one 
of the most pathetic episodes of his life. His correspondence at 
the period explains the apparent incongruity between occasional 
evidences of strong feeling and an habitual calmness of tone. 
His nature was so balanced as to admit, as a general rule, of 
perfect self-control. He repeatedly asserts that the coldness 
attributed to him is not real. In this great bereavement, he 
seems to have perfectly exercised the power of living in his mind, 
and finding a refuge from moral suffering in mental activity. But 
one of the most impressive physiological as well as intellectual 
lessons to be drawn from Southey's life is in his own personal 
experience. 

We have a striking example of the need of a legitimate hygiene 
for the assiduous writer, and the fatal consequence of its neglect. 
To his scholar's temperament and habits may be, in a measure, 
ascribed Southey's conservatism : and it is equally obvious how 
the same causes gradually modified his physical constitution, and, 
through this, the character of his mind. We believe it is now 
admitted that, where the temperament is not indicated with great 



ROBERT SOUTHEY. 63 

predominance, it may be almost entirely changed by diversity of 
circumstances and habits. The influence of the brain and ner- 
vous system is so pervading that, where the vocation constantly 
stimulates them, and leaves the muscles and circulation in a great 
de^i'ee inactive, remarkable modifications occur in the animal 
economy ; and so intimately are its functions associated with 
mental and moral phenomena, that it is quite unphilosophical to 
attempt to estimate or even analyze character without taking its 
agency into view. The sedentary life and cerebral activity of 
Sou they seem to have very soon subdued his feelings. We per- 
ceive, in the tone of his letters, a slow but certain diminution of 
animal spirits ; and, now and then, a prophetic consciousness of 
the frail tenure upon which he held, not his intelligent spirit, but 
his, mental machinery, the incessant action of which is adequate 
to explain its melancholy and premature decay. The time will 
come when his case will be recorded as illustrative of the laws of 
body and mind in their mutual relations, — a subject which 
Combe, Madden, and other popular writers, have shown to be 
fraught with teachings of the widest charity for what are called 
'• the infirmities of genius." 

How many pathetic chapters are yet to be written on this pro- 
lific theme, before the world is sufficiently enlightened to know 
how to treat her gifted children ! We need not go to Tasso's 
cell to awaken our sympathies in this regard ; from the fierce 
insanity of Swift and Collins, to the morbid irritability or gloom 
of Johnson, Pope, and Byron, and the imbecile age of ]Moore 
and Southey, the history of English authorship is replete with 
solemn warnings to use even the noblest endowments of humanity 
with meek and severe circumspection. God is not less worshipped 
by select intelligences, through fidelity to the natural laws, than 
by celebrating his glory in the triumphs of art. 

In a letter to Sharon Turner, in 1817, Southey remarks: 
" My spirits rather than my disposition have undergone a great 
change. They used to be exuberant beyond those of every other 
person; my heart seemed to possess a perpetual fountain of 
hilarity ; no circumstances of study, or atmosphere, or solitude, 
affected it ; and the ordinaiy vexations and cares of life, even 
when they showered upon me, fell off like hail from a pent-house. 



64 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 

That spring is dried up. I cannot now preserve an appearance 
of it at all without an effort, and no prospect in this world 
delights me except that of the next." Although he often attrib- 
uted this change to special causes, and particularly to the 
bereavement which bore so heavily on his heart, he was, at the 
same time, soon aware that the recuperative energies of his nature 
were essentially impaired. " It is," he writes to another friend, 
" between ourselves, a matter of surprise that this bodily machine 
of mine should have continued its operations with so few de- 
rangements, knowing, as I do, its excessive susceptibility to many 
deranging causes." These shadows deepened as time passed on, 
.and found him intent upon mental labor, when nature impera- 
tively demanded freedom, variety, the comedy of life, and the 
atmosphere of a serene, cheerful, and unhackneyed existence. 

There was nothing, however, in the native hue of Southey's 
mind that betokened any tendency to disease. On the contrary, 
his tone of feeling was singularly moderate, his estimate of life 
rather philosophic than visionary, and, for a poet, he scarcely 
has been equalled for practical wisdom and methodical self-gov- 
ernment. Instead of wishing newly-married people happiness, 
which he considered superfluous, he wished them patience ; in 
travelling, he was remarkable for making the best of everything ; 
he cherished a tranquil religious faith ; he systematized his life, 
and, instead of lamenting the dreams of youth as the only source 
of real enjoyment in life, he says, '" Our happiness, as we grow 
older, is more in quantity and higher in degree as well as kind." 

Another wholesome quality he largely possessed was candor. 
He bore with exemplary patience, as a general rule, the malev- 
olence of ciiticism, suffered with few murmurs the indignity of 
Gifford's mutilations of his reviews, and seemed to exhibit 
acrimony only when assailed by a radical, or when he alluded to 
Bonaparte, whose most appropriate situation, through his whole 
career, he declared to have been when sleeping beside a fire made 
of human bones in the desert. He had the magnanimity at once 
to confess the genuine success of the American navy, at a time 
when it was common in England to doubt even the testimony of 
facts on the subject. " It is in vain," he writes, "to treat the 
matter lightly, or seek to conceal from ourselves the extent of the 



ROBERT SOUTHEY. 65 

evil. Our naval superioritj is destroyed." Of Anierican liter- 
ature', at an earlier period, he declared, with more truth than now 
could be warranted, that " the Americans, since the Revolution, 
have not produced a single poet who has been heard of on this side 
of the Atlantic." Subsequently, he was, however, the first to 
do justice to the poetical merits of Maria del Occidente, and 
numbered several congenial literary friends among her country- 
men. A more versatile course might have contributed greatly 
to South ey's sustained vigor of mind. His early life was, 
indeed, sufficiently marked by vicissitude ; he was successively a 
law-studentj lecturer, private secretary, traveller, and author, and 
thought of becoming a librarian and a consul ; but the result 
was a firm reversion to his primary tastes for rural life and books. 
It is curious, as a psychological study, to trace the lapse of 
youth into manhood and senility, as indicated in the writings of 
men of talent, and observe how differently time and experience 
affect them, according to the elements of their characters. Some 
have their individuality of purpose and feeling gradually overlaid 
by the influences of their age and position, and in others it only 
asserts itself with more vehemence. There is every degree of 
independence and mobility, from the isolated hardihood of a 
Dante to the fertile aptitude of a Brougham. It was the normal 
condition of Southey to be conservative ; taste and habit, affec- 
tion and temperament, combined to reconcile him to things as 
they are, or, at least, to wean him from the restless life of a 
reformer. An intellectual friend of mine, noted for his love of 
ease, and whose creed was far more visionary than practical, sur- 
prised a circle, on one occasion, with his earnest advocacy of some 
political measure, and sighed heavily, as he added, " Vigilance is 
the eternal price of liberty." ^'But why," asked a companion, 
'' do you put on the watchman's cap?" The inquiry was appo- 
site ; he had no vocation to fight in the vanguard of opinion. 
And this seems to us a more charitable way of accounting for 
Southey's change of views, than to join his opponents in ascribing 
it to unalloyed selfishness.'^' 

* " In all his domestic relations Southey was the most amiable of men, but 
he had no general philantliropy ; he was what you call a cold man. I spent 
Bome time Avith him at Lord Lonsdale's, in company with Wordsworth and 



66 THE M A N F LETTERS. 

To the secluded llU^ruteyr^ watching over his gifted invalid boj 
amid romantic lakes and mountainSj the calm and nature-loving 
Wordsworth Avas a more desirable companion than Godwin, to 
whom, at a previous era, he acknowledged himself under essential 
intellectual obligations. His wife, the gentle and devoted Edith, 
might have objected to such an inmate as Marj Wolstonecraft, 
whom her husband preferred to all the literary lions during his 
early visits to London ; and it w^as far more agreeable to '• counter- 
act sedition " in his quiet studio at Keswick, than to roughly expe- 
rience Pantisocracy in America ; while a man of sterner mould 
might be pardoned for preferring a picnic glorification over the 
battle of Waterloo, on the top of Skiddaw, to a lonely struggle 
for human rights against the overwhelming tide of popular 
scorn, which drove the more adventurous and poetic Shelley into 
exile. All Southey's compassion, however, so oracularly ex- 
pressed for that sensitive and heroic spirit, derogates not a par- 
ticle' from the superior nobility of soul for which generous 
thinkers cherish his memory. We can, however, easily follow 
the natural gradations by which the boy Southey, whose ideal 
vas the Earl of Warwick, and the youth Southey, intent upon 
human progress and social reformation, became the man Southey, 
a good citizen, industrious author, exemplary husband and father, 
and most loyal subject. Indeed, the conservative mood begins 
to appear even before any avowed change in his opinions. Soon 
after his return from the first visit to Lisbon, while hesitatinp; 
what profession to adopt, and while his friends were discouraged 
at the apparent speculative .recklessness and desultory life he 
indulged, we find him writing to Grosvenor, one of his most inti- 
mate friends, '• I am conversing with you now in that easy, calm^ 
good-humored state of mind which is, perhaps, the summum 
honum ; the less we think of the world the better. My feelings 
were once like an ungovernable horse ; now I have tamed 
Bucephalus ; he retains his spirit and his strength, but tliey are 
made useful^ and he shall not break my neck." 

This early visit to Lisbon, when his mind was in its freshest 

others ; and, Avliile the rest of the party were walking about, talking and amus- 
ing themselves, Southey preferred sitting solus in the library." — Rogers^ 
Table Talk. 



ROBERT SOUTHEY. 67 

activity, attracted him to the literature of Spain and Portugal ; 
and the local associations, which gave them so vivid a charm to 
his taste, imparted kindred life to his subsequent critiques and 
historical sketches devoted to these scenes and people. They 
furnish another striking instance of the felicitous manner in which 
the experience of foreign travel and the results of study coalesce 
in literary productions. 

Authorship, indeed, was so exclusively the vocation of Southey 
that his life may be said to have been identified with it ; yet pur- 
sued, as we have seen, in a spirit often mechanical, we are not 
surprised that, while he felt himself adapted to the pursuit, he 
was sometimes conscious of that mediocrity which is the inevitable 
fruit of a wilful tension of the mind. Thus, while to one friend 
he ivrites, " One happy choice I made when I betook myself to 
literature as my business in life ;" to another, in 1815, he declares, 
" I have the disheartening conviction that my best is done, and 
that to add to the bulk of my works will not be to add to their 
estimation.'' Yet Southey, like all genuine authors, cherished 
his dream of glory,- and probably anticipated enduring renown 
from his poetry. The mechanical spirit of his literary toil, how- 
ever, was carried into verse. He set about designing a poem as 
he did a history or a volume of memoirs, and proceeded to fill up 
the outline with the same complacent alacrity. Many of these 
works exhibit great ingenuity of construction, both as regards 
form and language. They are striking examples of the inventive 
faculty, and show an extraordinary command of language ; in this 
latter regard, some of his verses are the most curious in our 
literature; — the 'Tall of Xodore" is an instance. But it is 
obvious that, unless fused by the glow of sentiment, however 
aptly constructed, elaborate versified tales can scarcely be ranked 
among the standard poems of any language. The best passages 
of his long poems are highly imaginative, but the style is diffuse, 
the interest complicated, and there is a want of human interest 
that prevents any'strong enlistment of the sympathies. They 
have not the picturesque and living attraction of Scott, nor yet 
the natural tenderness of Burns; but are melo- dramatic, and 
make us wonder at the author's fertility of invention, rather than 
become attached to its fruits. 



68 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 

One of the most striking instances of want of discrimination in 
the critical tone of the tlaj, was the habit of designating Cole- 
ridge, Wordsworth, and Southej, under the same general term. 
The only common ground for calling them the Lake School was 
the fact that they each resided among the lakes of Cumberland 
at one and the same time. The diffuse, reflective, philosophic 
muse of "Wordsworth is as essentially different from the mystic 
and often profoundly tender sentiment of Coleridge, as both are 
from the elaborate chronicles and rhetorical artifice of Southey. 
His " Pilgrimage to Waterloo " is an apt and clever journal in 
verse, occasionally, from its personal style and simplicity, quite 
attractive ; his laureate odes have a respectable sound, and fre- 
quently a commendable sense, but rarely any bardic fire or 
exquisite grace. In a word, although there is much to admire 
in Southey' s poetry as the work of a creative fancy and the result 
of research and facility, as well as invention in the use of lan- 
guage, we seldom find, in perusing his works, any of those 
"Elysian corners of intuition," where Leigh Hunt speaks of 
comparing notes with the reader. The amplitude, variety, and 
tact of constructive talent, and not the glow and mystery of 
genius, win us to his page. It informs, entertains, and seldom 
offends ; but rarely melts, kindles, or nerves the spirit. 

His most obstinate admirers cannot but admit that, as poems, 
'' Joan of Arc," " Madoc," and " Roderic," have many tedious 
passages. They are fluent, authentic chronicles, recorded in a 
strain that so often lapses from the spirit and dignity of the muse 
as to read like mere prose. Here and there, a graphic descrip- 
tive sketch or felicitous epithet redeems the narrative ; but no 
one can wonder that, in an age w^hen Byron individualized human 
passion in the most kindling rhyme, when Crabbe described so 
truthfully humble life, and Shelley touched the ideal spirit with 
his aerial fantasy, a species of poetry comparatively so distant 
from the associations of the heart should fail to achieve popularity. 
Indeed, Southey recognized the fact, and seemed not unwilling 
to share the favor of a limited but select circle with Landor and 
others, who, instead of universal suftage, ,gain the special admi- 
ration of the few. No author, however, cherished a greater faith 
in literature as a means of reputation. '' Literary fame," he 



ROBERT SOUTHET. 69 

says, '' is the only fame of which a wise man ought to be ambi- 
tious, because it is the only lasting and living fame. Bonaparte 
will be forgotten before his time in purgatory is half over, or but 
just remembered, like Nimrod or other cut-throats of antiquity, 
who serve us for the commonplaces of declamation. Put out 
your mind in a great poem, and you will exercise authority over 
the feelings and opinions of mankind as long as the language 
lasts." 

The two poems upon which Southey evidently most genially 
labored are " Thalaba " and '' The Curse of Kehama." They 
bear the most distinct traces of his idiosyncrasies as evinced in 
boyhood, when a translation of the "Jerusalem Delivered*' 
seems to have first directly appealed to his poetic instinct. The 
scenes of enchantment particularly fascinated him; then came 
"Ariosto" and "Spenser." The narrative form, and the im- 
aginative and romantic character of these works, harmonized with 
Southey's mind, and they continued his poetic vein after the taste 
of the age had become wedded to the natural, the human, and the 
direct, in poetry. His tone and imagery were somewhat modified 
by Bowles and Coleridge ; but he remained essentially in the class 
of romantic and narrative bards, in whose productions general 
effects, vague dramatic and supernatural charms, and heroic 
chronicles, form the pervading traits. Another characteristic of 
the modern poetry he lacked was concentration. One concise, 
vivid, and inspired lyric outlives the most labored epic. Ster- 
ling's brief tribute to " Joan of Arc " brings her nearer to us 
than Southey's quarto. 

As works of art, the varied rhyme and rhythm, and prolific 
fancy, won for Southey's long poems a certain degree of attention 
and respect : but he is remembered more for certain fine passages 
than for entire compositions. In these, his claim to the title of 
poet, in the best sense of the word, asserts itself; and, but for 
these, he w^ould rank only as a clever improvisatore. Learning, 
indeed, overlays inspiration in his long poems. He faithfully 
explored "Welsh annals for the materials of " Madoc," Hindoo 
mythology and Asiatic scenery for the " Curse of Kehama," and 
Gothic history for " Boderic." All narrative poems are some- 
what indebted to external materials ; but these must be fused, as 



70 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 

we have before hinted, into a consistent and vital whole bj the 
glow of some personal sentiment, ere they will find universal 
response. Thus, the intense consciousness of Byron, the cliivalric 
zeal of Campbell, and the amorous fancy of Moore, give a life 
and significance to their stories in verse that invest them with a 
sympathetic atmosphere and unity of feeling. There is little of 
this in Southey's narratives ; they are more ingenious than glow- 
ing, more imaginative than natural; and they entertain more 
than they inspire. He seems destitute of that sacred reserve 
which renders manners so efficient, deepens love's channel, and 
hallows truth to consciousness; that instinctive suggestiveness, 
which is a great secret of Dante's power, giving sublime intima- 
tions of Tennyson's exquisite sentiment, vaguely hinting the 
inexpressible, and of Wordsworth's solemn mysticism, as in the 
" Ode on the Prospect of Immortality." To such lofty and pro- 
found elements the poetry of Southey has no claims; but, in 
descriptive aptitude, and especially in rhetorical effect, he is 
sometimes remarkable. Occasionally, in these qualities, in their 
simplicity, he reminds us of the old dramatists ; thus, in ^ladoc : 

" The mastei's of the song 
In azure robes were robed — that one bright hue. 
To emblem unity, and peace, and truth, 
Like Heaven, which o'er a world of wickedness 
Spreads its eternal canopy serene. ' ' 

And again, in the same poem : 

" 'T is pleasant, by the cheerful hearth, to hear 
Of tempests and the dangers of the deep, 
And pause at times and feel that we are safe. 
Then listen to the perilous tale again. 
And with an eager and suspended soul 
Woo terror to delight us.** 

In Roderic is a fine and characteristic image : 

" Toward the troop he spread his arms. 
As if the expanded soul diffused itself. 
And carried to all spirits with the act 
Its affluent inspiration." 



ROBERTSOUTHEY. 71 

The description of moonlight in this poem, so justly admired, we 
perceive, by one of the author's letters, was drawn from an actual 
scene, which evidences the absolute need of strong personal 
impressions even for an imaginative poet. The description of the 
ruins of Babylon, in Thalaba — 

" The many-colored domes yet "wore one dusky liue " — 

is one of the happiest examples of Southey's powers of language, 
and musical adaptation of rhythm to sense. To one having a 
natural feeling of wonder and fine elocutionary powers, it is sus- 
ceptible of the most solemn recitative effect. The beautiful 
passage in his " Curse of Kehama." commencing, " They sin 
who tell us love can die," the ballads of ''Mary of the Inn"- and 
"The Battle of Blenheim," the " Verses to a Dead Friend," and 
'' The Holly Tree," are among the fugitive pieces, written from 
actual emotion, which illustrate Southey's affections, and have 
endeared him as a lyrist. 

He remarks, in one of his letters, that he most nearly resem- 
bles Chiarbrera, an Italian bard of the fifteenth century, who 
enjoyed high honors for his verses, and died at a prosperous old 
age. His works are comparatively neglected at present ; but 
Maffei, the literary historian, ascribes his success to merits very 
similar to those we have recognized in Southey. According to 
this critic, it was a saying of Chiarbrera that he wished to follow 
the example of Columbus and discover a new "vTorld, or perish, 
and that poetry should " lift the eyebrow ; " thus declaring sur- 
prise to be the great effect, and novelty the great means, of poetic 
excellence. Accordingly, his verse was prized chiefly for its 
style, which innovated greatly upon familiar models, and for its 
erudition, which was remarkable for that day. Thus his renown 
was gained by ingenuity and scholarship, rather than through 
intense natural sympathy or genuine inspiration. "We therefore 
find Southey's own estimate of his poetry, in a great degree, 
confirms our own. But this coincidence is as clearly, though 
less directly, suggested by his casual observations on the art, in 
his letters to cotemporary writers, and his advice to young poets 
who sought encouragement from his counsel. 

It is obvious, from the incidental views thus honestly 



72 THE MAN OF L E T T E 11 S . 

expressed, tliat he had not a vivid and permanent consciousness 
of a poet's birthright ; that the art was too much a branch of 
authorship, and too little a sacred instinct, in his estimation; and 
that the more erratic versifiers of the age, less elaborate, but far 
more intense and gonuine, won their larger popularity on legiti- 
mate grounds. He tells one of his correspondents, who had 
solicited his opinion of a poem, that his friends reckon him " a 
very capricious and uncertain judge of poetry ; " and elsewhere, 
in speaking of the error which identifies the power of enjoying 
natural beauty with that of producing poetry, he says, '-'One is a 
gift of Heaven, and conduces immeasurably to the happiness of 
those w^ho enjoy it ; the second has much more of a knack in it 
than the pride of poets is always willing to admit." If 
Southey's poetic faculty and feeling had been equal to his 
"knack" of versifying, he would have been quite as reluctant 
to ascribe to ingenuity what was consciously derived from a 
power above the will. Perhaps he was chagrined into this com- 
monplace view of the art by the fact that, while Scott was 
receiving three thousand guineas for the "Lady of the Lake," 
the " Curse of Kehama" was going through the press at the 
expense of Landor. 

The professional character of Southey's life is almost incom- 
patible with the highest literary results. His great merit as a 
writer consists in the utility of a portion of his works, and their 
nnexceptionablefc morality and good sense. The most surprising 
quality he exhibited as an author was industry. His name is 
thoroughly respectable in literature as it was in life : but it 
would be unjust to the chivalric and earnest genius of the age, 
elsewhere manifested in deeper and more significant, though less 
voluminous records, to award to Southey either the title of a 
great poet or a leader of opinion. His career, in regard to the 
latter, is clearly explained in his biography. We perceive that, 
even in boyhood, the intellect predominated in his nature. In 
the heyday of his blood, the companionship of bolder spirits and 
less chastened enthusiasts, the infectious atmosphere of the 
French Revolution, and the activity of the poetical instinct, not 
yet formalized into service, made him, for a w^hile, the indepen- 
dent thinker in religion and politics, and induced visions of social 



ROBERTSOUTHEY. 73 

equality which he hoped to realize across the sea. But early 
domestic ties and a natural love of study won him gradually back 
to conservative quietude. More than either of his brother poets, 
Southey had the temperament and taste of a scholar. He 
neither felt as deeply nor dreamed as habitually as Coleridge. 
The sensuous and the imao-inative were not so united in his beino; 
with the intellectual. He needed less excitement ; his spirit was 
far less adventurous ; and life did not press upon and around him 
with such prophetic and inciting power. 

It is needless to ascribe the^ change in his views altogether to 
interest ; this may have had its influence, but the character of the 
man yields a far more natural solution of the problem. He was 
doubtless as sincere when he accepted the laureateship as when 
he wrote " Wat Tyler : " but, in the latter case, his " blood and 
judgment were not well commingled." Southey, the Bristol 
youth, penniless, aspirmg, and fed with the daily manna of poetic 
communion, looked upon society ^^ ith different eyes than Southey, 
the recognized English author, resident of Cumberland, and 
father of a family. He knew how to use materials aptly, how to 
weave into connected and intelligible narrative the crude and 
fragmentary data of history and memoirs. In this manner he 
greatly served all readers of English. His " Life of Wesley " 
is the most authentic 'and lucid exposition of an extraordinary 
phase of the religious sentiment on record. Of Brazil and the 
Peninsular War he has chronicled memorable things in a per- 
spicuous style. Few pictures of British life are more true to 
fact and suggestive than " Espiiella's Letters." The '• Life of 
Nelson" is a model of unaffected, direct narrative, allowing the 
facts to speak for themselves through the clearest possible 
medium of expression ; and yet this most popular of South ey's 
books, far from being the offspring of any strong personal sympa- 
thy or perception, was so entirely a literary job, that he says it 
was thrust upon him, and that he moved among the sea-terms 
like a cat among crockery. For a considerable* period after the 
establishment of the " Quarterly," he found reviews the most 
profitable labor. Many of these are judicious and informing, but 
they seldom quicken or elevate either by rhetorical or reflective 
7 



74 T II E M A N F L E T T E R S . 

energy, and arc too often special picas to excite great interest. 
Those on purely literary subjects, liowever, are agreeable. 

If -vvc were to name, in a single term, the quality for which 
Southey is eminent, we should call him a verbal architect. His 
prose works do not open to our mental gaze new and wondrous 
vistas of thought ; they are not deeply impressive from the great- 
ness, or strangely winsome from the beauty, of their ideas. Their 
rhetoric does not warm and stir the mind, nor is their scope 
highly philosophic or gracefully picturesque. But their style is 
correct, unaffected, and keeps that medium which good taste 
approves in manners, speech, and costume, but which we seldom 
see transferred to the art of writing. For pure narrative, where 
the object is to give the reader unalloyed facts, and leave his own 
reflection and fancy to shape and color them, no English author 
has surpassed Southey. He appears to have been quite con- 
scious of the moderate standard to which he aspired. "As to 
what is called fine writing," he says, " the public will get none 
of that article out of me : sound sense, sound philosophy, and 
sound English, I will give them." There is no doubt, in so 
doing, he consulted the Anglo-Saxon love of regulated and useful 
principles and hatred of extravagance, and was thus an admira- 
ble type of the modern English mind ; but such an ideal, how^ever 
praiseworthy and respectable, scarcely co'incides with the more 
noble and inspired mood in which the permanent masterpieces of 
literary genius are conceived and executed. 



THE MODERN KNIGHT 

SIR KENELM DI6BY. 



One of the most attractive figures visible on that imaginary 
line where the eve of chivalry and the dawn of science unite to 
form a mysterious yet beautiful twilight, is that of Sir Kenelm 
Digby. To our imagination he represents the knight of old 
before the characteristics of that romantic style of manhood were 
diffused in the complex developments of modern society, and the 
philosopher of the epoch when fancy and superstition held sway 
over the domain of the exact sciences. Bravery, devotion to the 
sex, and a thirst for glory, nobleness of disposition and grace of 
manner, traditional qualities of the genuine cavalier, signalized 
Sir Kenelm, not less than an ardent love of knowledge, a habi- 
tude of speculation, and literary accomplishment ; but his courage 
and his gallantry partook of the poetic enthusiasm of the days of 
Bayard, and his opinions and researches were something akin to 
those of the alchemists. High birth and a handsome person gave 
emphasis to these traits ; and we have complete and authentic 
memorials whereby he is distinctly reproduced to our minds. 
These, however, do not consist of those elaborate treatises which, 
doubtless, cost him severe application ; his views of the nature 
of corporeal and spiritual laws are quite obsolete, — learned and 
ingenious, perhaps, but not of present significance. The crit- 
icisms that beguiled his imprisonment evince his taste and mental 
aptitudes by their subjects — Sir Thomas Browne and Spenser ; 
two authors who include that wide range of sympathy that lies 



76 T II E M D E R N K N I G H T . 

between fancy and reason. The events of his life, although 
remarkable, do not unfold the individuality of the man to the 
degree requisite for a genial impression. The offices he held 
imply no special interest of character ; others have enjoyed 
royal favor, suffered persecution, and gone through all the phases 
of the courtier and scholar, without leaving behind them any 
fragrant memories. It is not, therefore, as gentleman of the bed- 
chamber to Charles I., as naval commissioner, as an exile for his 
religion, or as the eccentric devotee of science, that Sir Kenelm 
Digby claims our notice ; but it is in his character of an adven- 
turous gentleman and brave lover, as combining the loyalty and 
the aspiration of the knight with the graces of the man of the 
world and society, and thus giving us one of the last warm 
reflections of a departed era, which invests his name with a pecu- 
liar charm. The relics which bring him at once and vividly 
before us are his portrait by Vandyke, and the unique piece of 
autobiography he left ; the former is in the Bodleian gallery at 
Oxford, and the latter is preserved in the Harleian collection of 
the British Museum. These are genuine records ; they had a 
vital origin, and are caught from reality : whereas the more osten- 
tatious traces of his life are lost in the obscurity of an antiquated 
style and foreign associations. All that is beautiful in Sir Ken- 
elm^ s career originated in his love, which, like a thread of gold, 
interlaces and redeems his experience. Around the name of his 
■wife are clustered the trophies of his fame. Sentiment elicited 
and glorified the elements of his character, which, uninfluenced 
by such a principle, would, in all probability, have diffused 
themselves in the blandishments of pleasure, or the career of 
ambition. 

A mournful historic interest attaches to his name ; for he was 
the eldest son of the most gentle in lineage and the most pure 
in motive of the conspirators who suffered death for the Gun- 
powder treason. Probably no »victim of a cause so unrighteously 
supported ever more thoroughly atoned for his error with his 
life : the sacrifice of his existence and his estates appeared to 
silence forever the voice of reproach ; he was soon regarded as 
unfortunate rather than criminal — a fanatic, not a traitor ; and 
the memory of his patience, meekness, and fortitude, survived 



SIRKENELMDIGBY. 77 

that of his conspiracy. "With such a heritage of gloomy dis- 
tinction, his son entered life; and there was that in his very 
blood which prompted, on the one hand, to honor, and. on the 
otlier, to mental cultivation and domestic peace. Educated a 
Protestant, he early commenced those travels abroad then deemed 
essential to a gentleman ; and the first inkling of scientific zeal 
and public spirit appears in the recipe he brought home (which 
soon became famous), for making a "sympathetic powder." by 
applying which to anything that bad received the blood of the 
wounded, instant relief was thought to be afibrded, even if the 
patient was not present. This idea was never abandoned ; it was 
one of tlie results of the occult studies then in vogue ; and the 
"sympathetic powder" is as intimately associated with Sir 
Kenelm Digby's name, as tar-water with Bishop Berkeley's. 

An old English writer mentions having seen, in the window of 
a brazier's shop in London, a mutilated bust, which he recognized 
as that of Venitia Stanley. It once surmounted the costly tomb, 
erected by Sir Kenelm Digby for her remains, in Christ Church, 
near Newgate ; and bore the marks of the conflagration that 
nearly destroyed the monument in 1675-6. Such is the poor 
memento of one of the most celebrated beauties of her time. A 
descendant of the Percies of Northumberland, she was educated 
by one of her father's relations in the immediate neighborhood 
of the Digby manor ; and hence occurred the childish intimacy 
between her and the boy Kenelm. When taken to court in her 
girlhood, Venitia became, at once, the object of universal admi- 
ration; and, as so often happens to ladies thus distinguished, 
rumor, never however authenticated, was soon busy with her 
fame. She was abducted by one impassioned suitor, but made 
her escape ; was rescued from a wild beast by another, and 
induced, after a long persecution, on the report of Digby's death, 
to betroth herself to her preserver ; this apparent disloyalty was, 
perhaps, encouraged by the strenuous opposition of Sir Kenelm' s 
mother to his proposed alliance, occasioned by the malicious 
reports circulated to Yenitia's prejudice. In the mean time her 
absent lover had won no little reputation as an accomplished gen- 
tleman. He stood high in the favor of the queen of France, 
when he first sojourned abroad, and reaccompanied a kinsman, 
7* 



78 THE MODERN KNIGHT. 

who had been sent to negotiate the marriage of Prince Charles 
in Spain, to Madrid ; and, on the way, killed two bandits who 
waylaid them. As attache to the prince's suite, he soon became 
useful and a favorite at court, where he attracted a lady of the 
royal family ; and his early love alone prevented an eligible mar- 
riage. We can readily imagine the feelings with which Digby, 
full of anxiety from the report of Venitia's engagement, disem- 
barked with his royal friend at London, on his return from Spain. 
On the first day of his arrival he caught a glimpse of the fair 
object of his devotion ; and it soothed his lover's heart to 
observe that "she sat so pensively on one side of her coach." 
An explanation followed. It appeared that their letters had been 
intercepted, and that the new aspirant for her hand had already 
been dismissed for his infidelity. A new prospect of happiness 
was thus opened ; but Sir Kenelm was invited to accompany the 
Duke of Buckingham to Paris, to arrange the nuptials between 
Prince Charles and Henrietta Maria. Two evidences of the 
chivalric spirit of these lovers occurred at this epoch. Digby 
was solicited by a friend, who was ignorant of his relations with 
Yenitia Stanley, to intercede for him with her ; and this he felt 
bound in honor to do, although he ' ' would rather have died than 
seen her in any other man's possession." Nor was she wanting 
in generosity ; for. Sir Kenelm being too much impoverished 
to equip himself for the honorable expedition in view, Yenitia 
pawned all her jewels to obtain the requisite funds. The argu- 
ments of his mother and friends were no longer allowed to influ- 
ence his heart ; he fought a duel with one of her traducers, and 
forced him to confess the baseness of his slanders ; he obtained 
back her picture from his discarded rival ; and they were privately 
married. Digby had been knighted on his return from Spain ; 
and he was blest with the love and companionship of her whose 
image had never grown dim in his breast, from the time he 
sported with her in childhood, until that which made her his 
bride. His was not a spirit, however, to rest contented without 
crowning love with glory, and proving its inspiration by great 
deeds; he wished to sliow that it "had not lessened the noble- 
ness of his mind, nor abated the edge of his active and vigorous 



SIRKENELMDIGBY. 79 

spirits;" he desired, therefore, '-'to undertake something which 
should tend to his own honor and the king's service." 

A great favorite at Whitehall, and natui^allj gay, he yet cheer-- 
fully embarked in a maritime expedition, and gained a naval vic- 
tory at Scanderoon over the Algerines and Venetians. It was 
during his sojourn at an island, awaiting his fleet dispersed by a 
storm, that he became the object of interest to the ladies of his 
host's acquaintance, and to avoid even the appearance of forget- 
fulness of Yenitia. he retired under pretence of writing de- 
spatches, and then composed the piece of autobiography to which 
we have alluded. In the quaint elegance of its style, and the 
lofty ardor of its sentiments, this curiosity of literature is a gem 
of its kind. Under fictitious names he describes himself, his mis- 
tress and friends, the course of his love, its origin, consummation, 
and philosophy. A few extracts will give an idea of the whole : 
* .* * -^^ *^* * 

" At such times then as my soul, being delivered of other out- 
ward distractions, hath summoned all her faculties to attend to 
this main business, the first consideration that hath occurred to 
me hath been that the peace and tranquillity of the mind ought to 
be aimed at ; the obtaining of which is an infallible token that 
one is in the right way of attaining to perfect happiness; or 
rather these two have so straight "and near a relation, as that one 
cannot be without the other." 

'3v 'T? ^V -?t" -7? 'tr -^ 

"And, besides, because that in exact friendship the wills of 
the two friends ought to be so dro\\Tied in one another, like two 
flames which are joined, that they become but one, which cannot be 
unless the ficulties of the understanding be equal, they guiding 
the actions of a regulated will, it cometh to pass for the most 
part that this halteth on the woman's side, whose notions are not 
usually so high and elevated as men's : and so it seldom happen- 
eth that there is that society between them in the highest and 
deepest speculations of the mind, which are consequently the most 
pleasing, as is requisite in a perfect friendship." 

" But at length I perceived that that infinite light which illu- 
minateth all things, is never wanting to illustrate such a mind as 



80 THE MODERN KNIGHT. 

with due humility and diligence maketh itself fit to receive it ; for 
it was not long before such an example occurred to me, as satisfied 
me that in this life a man may enjoy so much happiness as without 
anxiety or desire of having anything besides what he possesseth, 
he may, with a quiet and peaceable soul, rest with full measure 
of content and bliss, that I know not whether it be short of it in 
anything but the security of continuance. It was the perfect 
friendship and noble love of two generous persons, that seemed to 
be born in this age by ordinance of Heaven to teach the world 
anew what it hath long forgotten, the mystery of loving with 
honor and constancy between a man and a woman : therefore 
this is the true happiness that a wise man ought to aim at, since 
that himself is master of it, and he can give it to himself when he 
list. I hope, therefore, then, that you will no longer call that the 
weakest of all the passions which produceth so noble effects." 

To a mind strongly alive to the beautiful there, is a peculiar 
charm in traditional loveliness ; and the effect of this is increased 
when such attractions are made known to us by the influence they 
exerted upon contemporaries, rather than by details of feature. 
The constancy which the graces of Venitia Stanley enforced upon 
Sir Kenelm, under circumstances of great temptation of fickle- 
ness ; the faith she inspired in his soul notwithstanding the sneers 
of his comrades, the whispered innuendo, and some indiscretion on 
her part, and the entire satisfaction he found in her love, as well 
as his devotion to her memory, give us a deeper impression of her 
charms than the mere fact that she was universally admired. 
And then, too, there is an appeal to our best feelings in the very 
idea of beauty unjustly associated with shame ; the readiness of 
the world to derogate from charms that excite envy, the liability, 
in one beloved and flattered, to forget circumspection, and a thou- 
sand other arguments at once suggest themselves in defence of 
the assailed. In the case of Lady Digby, her chief accuser was 
proved to be both false and malicious, and the consistent happi- 
ness of their married life soon justified the loving choice of Sir 
Kenelm. 

On the first of May, 1633, he sustained the loss of this en- 
deared and beautiful woman ; and instantly retired to Gresham 
Colleore, and there wore a " lono; mournino- cloak, a hio^h-cornered 



SIRKENELMDIGBY. 81 

hat. and his beard unshorn." Ben Jonson eulogized her under 
the name of Euplieme : her husband raised the monument already 
mentioned, and her face is perpetuated in numerous- busts and 
portraits. 

The remainder of Sir Kenelm's life was given to travel and 
study. He endured persecution for his Catholic sentiments to 
which he had been converted in France, where, upon his return, 
he was regarded as a great acquisition to the court; visited Des- 
cartes, and wrote his treatises. At Rome he is said to have 
quarrelled with the pope. On the breaking out of the civil war 
with, England, the queen mother of France, always friendly to 
him, successfully interceded in his behalf; and when, soon after 
the dissolution of the Long Parliament, he returned home, to the 
surprise of all, the Protector befriended him; an anomaly twice 
explained by the supposition that he endeavored to bring about a 
combination between the enemies of the monarchy and the Cath- 
olics. 

The public spirit of Sir Kenelm Digby was never inactive. 
He fitted out the squadron he commanded at his own expense, 
and went on several embassies with little or no remuneration ; he 
bequeathed the valuable collection of works inherited from his old 
tutor to the Bodleian library ; and was constantly engaged either 
in the acquisition or the diffusion of knowledge. He expended 
over a thousand pounds for historical manuscripts relating to his 
family. While at Montpelier and other seats of learning, on the 
continent, he was intimate with the eminent men of science and 
letters. After the Restoration he was nomiiiated to the Council. 
His last years were passed at his house at Covent Garden, in the 
study of philosophy and mathematics, and in the best social inter- 
course. He was a great sufferer from the same disease that 
afflicted Montaigne; and died, by a remarkable coincidence, on 
his birthday, which was also the anniversary of his naval triumph, 
in 1665, at the age of sixty-two. 

Sir Kenelm was a thorough gentleman, and, although the genial 
dignity of that character was somewhat tinctured by a harmless 
vanity, his gifts of mind and grace of person and manner pre- 
vented any compromise of his self-respect. Lord Clarendon says 
that his conduct, which would have been considered affectation in 



82 THE MODERN KNIGHT. 

the majority of mankind, "seemed natural to his size, the mould 
of his person, the gravity of his motion, and the tone of his voice 
and delivery." It is curious to imagine him in the various 
phases his character offers — the elegant courtier, moving with 
dignified pleasantry amid the nobles of England, France, and 
Spain; the credulous philosopher, consulting an Italian friar 
about the sympathetic powder, and a Brahmin as to the destinies 
revealed by the stars ; the brave soldier, placing his ship along- 
side of the enemy's admiral, and cheering on his men to victory; 
the exile foj religious opinion, the ambassador of his country, the 
scholar closeted with the most learned of his day ; and all these, 
we must remember, are but the episodes in the love-poem of his 
life. Eccentric, wanting in steadiness of aim, both practical and 
speculative, yet learned, brave, and, though often accused, never 
found unworthy — faithful in love and war, and noble in spirit — 
the knowledge, weaknesses, aspirations, the manly beauty and 
chivalric passion of his times, found in Kenelm Digby an illus- 
trious embodiment. 



THE FINANCIER 

JACQUES LAFITTE. 



In the majority of cases large fortunes are gained and pre- 
served through careful attention to details — a habit -which is 
supposed to militate with comprehensive views and liberal sym- 
pathies. It iSj therefore, common to regard the acquisition of 
money and elevation of taste and character as essentially incom- 
patible ; and this consideration gives peculiar interest and value 
to the few noble exceptions to a general rule which reveal the 
sagacious financier as a patriot and philosopher. Prejudice, and 
the narrow ideas usually cherished by the devotees of trade, have 
caused the whole subject of money — its acquisition, preservation, 
and use — to be consigned to the domain of necessary evils, or the 
study of the political economist. It is, however, an interest too 
vital, and too inextricably woven into all the relations of modern 
society, not to have claims upon the most reflective minds, inde- 
pendent of all personal considerations. 

The actual theory of an individual in regard to money is no 
ordinary test of character ; the degrees of his estimation of it as 
a means or an end, and as a source of obligation and responsibil- 
ity, are graduated by the very elements of his nature, and become 
a significant indication of his tone of mind and range of feeling. 
In its larger relations — those of a national kind — history proves 
that finance is a vast political engine, intimately connected with 
the freedom, growth, and civil welfare, as well as external pros- 
perity, of a country. The traveller far removed from his native 



84 T ir E F I N A N C I E R . 

land, at a period of great financial distress, is made to realize the 
importance of credit, its moral as well as pecuniary basis, when 
he hears the character and means of all the prominent bankers in 
the world freely canvassed in some obscure nook of the earth, 
only connected perhaps with the civilized world by this very 
recognition of pecuniary obligation. 

It is at such crises, bringing home to his own consciousness the 
vast and complicated relations of money to civilized life, that the 
individual becomes aware of the extensive social utility of those 
principles of financial science to which perhaps, in less hazardous 
exigencies, he has given but listless attention. The same broad 
views of the subject are forced upon a nation's mind in the junc- 
tures of political existence, and all great revolutions alternate 
from the battle-field and the cabinet to the treasury, — the state 
of public and private credit being, as it were, a scale that truly 
suggests the condition of the body politic, — like the pulse of a 
nation's life. Besides its attraction as a study of character, 
therefore, the life of one of the most illustrious of modern finan- 
ciers possesses great incidental interest ; and its unadorned facts 
yield the most impressive illustration of the relation of money to 
society and government. 

The vicinity of the Pyrenees and the Bay of Biscay renders 
Bayonne a favorable site both for inland and foreign trade ; and 
her commerce with Spain on the one side and her lucrative fish- 
eries on the other, as well as the large amount of ship-timber 
annually exported to Brest and other parts of France, amply vin- 
dicate her claim to commercial privileges, vrhich are still further 
secured by the enterprise of the Gascon character. That it is an 
excellent mercantile school is evident from the proverbial success 
of her inhabitants elsewhere. 

It was from this old city that a youth of twenty, breaking 
away from his mother's tearful embrace, one night in the year 
1787, departed for Paris, with no guarantee of a prosperous expe- 
rience except that derived from an ingenuous disposition, enthu- 
siasm, ready intelligence, and great natural cheerfulness. He 
became a clerk to the banker M. Peregaux ; and soon after, by 
his own obvious merit, book-keeper, then cashier, and finally the 
exclusive director and indispensable man of business of the estab- 



JACQUES L A FITTE. 85 

lishment. Sucli was the origin of Jacques Lafitte's career. The 
qualities which thus advanced him in private life soon inspired 
public confidence, and gradually led to his honorable and progres- 
sive activity in the national councils. Financial ability of a high 
order, combined with noble traits of character, thus identified him 
with the best interests of his country, and enrolled his name 
amono- her most efiicient and illustrious citizens. One of ten 
children, his first object was to provide for his family, which he 
did with characteristic generosity. In 1809 the son of the poor 
carpenter of Bayonne was the president of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, regent of the Bank, and master of a princely fortune. 
Thenceforth we trace his agency, more or less distinctly, in the 
wonderful series of events that succeeded the first revolution ; 
now providing funds for a royal exile, now coming to the rescue 
of a bankrupt nation, and again lying wounded on his sofa, advis- 
ing, ordering, and invoking the chief actors in the events of the 
three days in July, — his court-yard a barrack, and his saloon 
an impromptu cabinet, where a provisional government was organ- 
ized and Louis Philippe proclaimed. 

It was standing between Lafitte and Lafiiyette that the new 
king first ventured to show himself to the people. For many 
years the patriot-broker was the centre of a gifted society, the 
arbiter of pecuniary affairs, the coadjutor of monarchs and men 
of genius, of the working classes and political leaders. Surr 
rounded by luxury, he never became indolent; with absorbing 
duties, he atoned by study for a neglected education; the pos- 
sessor of immense w^ealth, he never forgot the responsibility it 
involved ; a zealous partisan, and of so conciliatory a temper as 
to have the reputation of caprice in opinion, he preserved unbro- 
ken a moral consistency that won universal respect. 

To this special insight of a financier Lafitte added genuine 
public spirit ; he fully realized the social claims incident to his 
wealth and financial knowledge ; and accordingly never hesitated 
to sacrifice personal interest to the general welfare, whenever 
circumstances rendered it wise and benevolent so to act. When 
governor of the Bank of France, he relinquished his salary of a 
hundred thousand francs in its favor, on account of the poverty of 
the institution : in 1814, when the directors assembled, after the 
8 



86 T II E F I N A N C I E R . 

entrance of the foe into Paris, to raise funds, he proposed a 
national subscription, and munificently headed the list. When 
the allies were at the gates of the city, he steadily refused to 
endanger the credit of the bank by a forced loan ; and, to avert 
the horrors of civil war, placed two millions of his own property 
in the hands of the Minister of Finance. After the events of the 
three days, he resigned his coffers to the provisional government : 
his hotel was the rendezvous of the chief actors, his party 
installed Lafayette at the head of the troops, and it was he that 
sent word to the Duke of Orleans to choose between a crown and 
a passport, and subsequently caused him to be proclaimed. 

Thus Lafitte thrice gave a safe direction to the chaotic elements 
of revolution, and came bravely and successfully to the rescue of 
his country in great emergencies. Nor was his action in behalf 
of individuals less noble and prompt. When Louis XVIII. was 
exiled, he sent the royal fugitives four millions of francs ; when 
the Duke of Orleans offered large though doubtful securities to 
various commercial houses in vain, Lafitte accepted them at par 
value, uncertain as they were. When Napoleon departed for St. 
Helena, Lafitte became the repository of the remainder of his 
fortune ; when General Eoy experienced a reverse of fortune, and 
imprudently sought relief in stock speculations, the generous 
banker confidentially arranged with his broker to enrich the 
brave and proud officer, and, when he died, Subscribed a hundred 
thousand francs for the benefit of his family. These are but 
casual instances of his private liberality. It was a habit as well 
as principle with him to afford pecuniary relief whenever and 
wherever real misfortune existed ; to cherish, by the same means, 
industry, letters, art, and benevolent institutions, with a judg- 
ment and delicacy that infinitely endeared his gifts. It is not 
surprising that both people and rulers were, at times, impelled by 
grateful sympathy to recognize the noble spirit of such a finan- 
cier; — that the Emperor Alexander jilaced a guard at his door 
when his liberty was threatened by the invaders : — that Napo- 
leon expressed his confidence by saying, as he left the remnant 
of his fortune in his hands, "I know you did not like my govern- 
ment, but I know you are an honest man;" and that France 
herself, when his own fortune was wrecked by his devotion to the 



JACQUES LAFITTE. 87 

bank and the country, was moved at the remembrance of his 
sacrifices, would not permit the first asylum of the revolution to 
be sold, and, by a national subscription, redeemed it for Lafitte. ' 

It is, however, to be regretted that he ever interested himself 
actively in politics, except as they were directly related to his 
peculiar sphere. When called upon to bring financial means to 
the aid of government or people, in their exigencies of civil life, 
we have seen his exemplary wisdom, integrity, and generous 
spirit ; when he addressed the Chambers upon any question of 
debt, credit, loans, or currency, his superior intelligence and prac- 
tical genius at once won respectful attention ; his lucid and able 
reports, while governor of the bank, indicate his accurate knowl- 
edge of the principles of public credit ; the remarkable speeches 
in which he revealed a project for resuscitating the nation's 
treasury,^ the originality of his ideas, his colloquial eloquence, 
and the manner in which he made a dry subject, and even figures 
themselves, interesting and comprehensive, — amply prove his 
remarkable adaptation to the domain of social economy and polit- 
ical action he illustrated. Appointed by the king in 1816 as 
one of the Committee of Finance, with the Duke of Kichelieu at 
its head, he contested the system of forced loans as identical with 
bankruptcy. In 1836 he demanded the reimbursement of the 
five per cents. His theory was founded essentially on the con- 
viction that the way to diminish the burdens of the people is to 
diminish the expenses of the state. 

Had Lafitte thus strictly confined himself to the subject of 
which he was master, it is probable he would have escaped, in a 
great degree, the blind prejudice of his opponents. As it was, 
however, his career as a deputy, to the view of an impartial spec- 
tator, reflects honor upon his character. Here, as in private 
life, he was eminently distinguished by moral courage. On one 
occasion he boldly proposed the impeachment of ministers. 
During the hundred days he was one of the intrepid minority that 
sought to preserve France from a second invasion. In opposing 
the system of forced loans, his noble hai^dihood induced the king 
to invest him with the legion of honor. " I have," he said to the 
Duke of Richelieu, his most formidable antagonist on this occa- 
sion, " bound myself to speak my mind ; ^if the plan I propose is 



88 THEFINANCIER. 

salutary, it is for the king to decide whether he will sacrifice the 
Chambers to France, or the country to the Chambers." 

On the celebrated twenty-eighth of July, accompanied by liis 
friends, he traversed the scene of hostilities to the Carousel, — the 
quarters of Marshal Marmont, — and adjured him to put a stop to 
the carnage. " Military honor," said the commander of Paris, 
"consists in obedience." '' Civil honor," replied the brave deputy, 
'' consists in not slaughtering the citizens to destroy the consti- 
tution." At the funeral of Manuel he arrested with his elo- 
quence the outbreak between the military and the people. He 
was in the front rank of the defenders of the charter, the stanch 
advocate of the freedom of the press ; and, when he saw the revo- 
lution of July approaching, effectually and at great personal risk 
strove to make it as useful and bloodless as the nature of tliincrs 
would permit. "My conscience," he said, "is without reproach. 
I founded, it is true, a new dynasty, but I found something in 
it legitimate. Posterity w411 judge me. I hope the loyalty of 
my intentions will find me grace in the eyes of history. I never 
deceived any one. My principles never changed. I believed in 
1830 that France could only be republican through monarchy. 
I was wrong, and I repent with all my heart." For half a cen- 
tury he defended the rights of the people, and never ceased to 
preach moderation, but " a moderation compatible w^ith liberty 
and national honor." 

In the war of opinion and the strife of party Lafitte suffered 
the inevitable caprices of popular favor. Even his opponents, how- 
ever, considered what they deemed his faults to arise from the 
strength of his affections, rather than the perversion of his will. 
His official life ruined his private fortunes ; and the bitterness of 
his disappointment at the apparent inefficacy of the revolution in 
which he had taken so prominent a part, may be inferred from 
the memorable fact that he ascended the tribune, and, with much 
solemnity, asked pardon of Heaven for having contributed to its 
success. He seems at last to have become thoroughly aware of 
the limits of his natural vocation, and expressed himself as con- 
tent when, free once more from the trammels of state, he began to 
retrieve his fortunes as a banker. 

The views of Lafitte, however, on all subjects which he inves- 



JACQUESLAFITTE. 89 

tigated, were remarkable for sound reason and moderation. He 
was no fanatic in politics, and understood the character of his 
nation. Louis XVI. , he thought, aimed at a moral impossibility 
in attempting to retain all his prerogatives, without which the 
eclat of his office would be lost, while he knew the complaints of 
his people to be just. To the vacillation incident to this double 
view of the case, and the consequent indecision of a naturally 
good heart, he ascribed his course, which abased royalty while 
making sincere concessions. He believed, too, that the monarch 
owed his downfall more to injudicious friends than real enemies. 
The Girondists, he considered, tried the fatal experiment of 
attempting to reconcile people and court, and were too timid for 
the first and too advanced for the last ; he regarded the irresolu- 
tion of Lafayette as the flaw in his excellent nature ; Danton, 
Robespierre, and Marat, he viewed as victims of the fiivre revo- 
lutionnaire, and, therefore, not to be judged in the same man- 
ner as men in a healthful condition. Indeed, he declared that 
no one could safely predict his own conduct under the influence 
of great political excitement. "I have," he said, '-made the sad 
experiment ; it is best not to enter the vortex ; if you do you are 
borne on blindfolded." He always insisted that the great results 
of the French Revolution could have been attained by less terri- 
ble means. He recognized fully the reforms of Napoleon, and, 
with the acumen of a political economist, watched the growing 
prosperity of the nation ; but none the less lamented the deca- 
dence of freedom with the grief of a patriot. He recoiled from the 
duplicity of the emperor, and grieved at the subserviency of the 
senate. What most surprised Lafitte, in Bonaparte, was his for- 
tune ; and he deemed his fatal error the attempt to impose on 
France a continental system wholly incompatible with the age. 
In a word, he honored Napoleon as a soldier, and despised him as 
a ruler. The office of the press he seems to have thoroughly 
appreciated; '-'-fai toiijoiirs pense^''^ he says, ^^ que la pr esse est 
dans un Hat^ Vvnique moyen de retenir le poitvoir dans les 
homes de la moderation et de Vempecher de se Uvrer a Varbi- 
traireP 

Although, when elected to the Chamber of Deputies, Lafitte 
immediately took his place on the benches of the opposition, and 
8* 



90 T II E F I N A N C I E R . 

subsequently attained the presidency of the cabinet, and in 1817 
was the only name deposited in the urns of twenty sections of the 
electoral college, by supporting the reduction of the rents and the 
creation of the three per cents, he alienated many of his party. 
Indeed, such was his political eclecticism, that a democratic writer 
says ''he lost his popularity by his monarchical affections," — 
alluding to his personal attachments to members of the royal family; 
and a monarchist attributes it to his democratic attachments ; thus 
justifying the inference of his biographer, that he was ''too much 
a man of heart to be a statesman." In the sphere of his individ- 
ual ambition, however, — in his financial opinions and career, as 
well as in the tone of his character, — Lafitte was remarkably 
consistent ; sagacious, upright, benevolent, and patriotic. He 
completely refuted the base charge, suggested by partisan animos- 
ity, of having sold his vote to the minister; and whatever 
popular favor he may have lost as the member of a faction, he 
amply regained as a man. This is evident from the universal 
sympathy awakened by his loss of fortune, and the confidence 
and gratitude with which the people rallied to his call when he 
established his famous Caisse d^ escompte^ now the memorial of 
his useful and honorable career. By means of this institution 
the poorest artisan has a safe and profitable investment for his 
earnings. 

In 1837, having thus settled his afiairs and reestablished his 
credit, he thus addressed the shareholders : " It is not without 
emotion that I find myself restored to these labors, and about to 
crown, with an undertaking worthy of my best efibrts. a career in 
which I have perhaps done some good. I forget many past mis- 
haps, and all the bitterness of political life, which promised noth- 
ing to my ambition, and the burden of which I only accepted 
from devotion to my country. The future had compensation in 
reserve for me ; and the second of October, 1837 — the day on 
which I resume my business — consoles me for the nineteenth of 
January, 1831 — the day on which I left it." Thus opening 
a credit to the humbler branches of industry, Lafitte rescued 
many a victim from the extortions of the usurer. 

The financial services of Lafitte in France vividly recall those 
of Kobert Morris in America. At the commencement of the 



JACQUES LAFITTE. 91 

American Revolution he was more extensively engaged in com- 
merce than any of his fellow-citizens, and was one of the first 
Philadelphians irretrievably to commit himself in behalf of the 
colonies at a great pecuniary sacrifice ; thus inspiring the same 
unbounded confidence in his patriotism which his integrity and 
wisdom had long before gained for him as a man of business. 
He was on every committee of ways and means appointed by the 
legislature of his native state, and, from the outbreak of hostil- 
ities, devoted all the force of his talents, the influence of his 
name, his credit and fortune, to his country ; and these seldom 
failed in the hour of need. When his official resources were 
inadequate he pledged his individual credit. Like Lafitte, he 
was exposed to misrepresentation, and, like him, triumphed over 
calumny. All the requisite means for Washington's expedition 
against Cornwallis were furnished by him ; and his own notes, to 
the amount of four hundred thousand dollars, thus fearlessly given^ 
were all finally paid. While invested, as he long was, with the 
entire provision, control, and expenditure, of the public finances, 
the history of his difficulties and expedients would fill a volume. 
When the imminent danger that originally induced him to accept 
this responsible office had passed away, he gladly resigned. 

His resemblance to Lafitte was increased by a natural urban- 
ity, vigor of action, broad views, rigid justice, strict method, and 
also by the eventual loss of his own fortune, and the establishment 
of an excellent system of finance. He founded the Bank of 
America, the first institution of the kind in that country, upon 
principles the utility of which time has fully proved. In patri- 
otic zeal, and in the respect of his illustrious contemporaries, he 
also ofiers a parallel to the renowned French banker. He was the 
friend of Washington, and justly regarded as " the soul of the 
financial concerns " of the nation. " No one," it has been said, 
"parted more freely with his money for public or private pur- 
poses of a meritorious nature." When Hamilton became Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, no statistics of the country had appeared ; 
her resources were only surmised ; and, after holding the office for 
five years, he left it at an unprecedented height of reputation. By 
these two acute and zealous patriots the foundation of American 
prosperity was laid ; and the identity of their opinions with those 



92 THE FINANCIER. 

of Lafitte is remarkable. " The whole business of finance," 
they thought, '' was comprised in two short but comprehensive 
sentences. It is to raise the public revenue bj such modes as 
may be most easy and most equal to the people, and to expend it 
in the most frugal, fair, and honest manner." 

The personal tastes of Jacques Lafitte were characterized by the 
same moderate tone. He loved elegance, and surrounded himself 
with all those brilliant resources that wealth so abundantly sup- 
plies in the French metropolis ; but they did not enervate or 
bewilder his mind; he continued his daily toil with unremitted 
zeal ; casting aside, however, with the greatest facility, the severe 
concentration of the financier, to mingle, with the abrnidon of 
the joyous south, at his own splendid fetes, with the brave, the 
wise, and the lovely. Even his literary predilections were char- 
acteristic : he ignored the romantic and loved the classic writers 
of his country, while the honhommie and patriotism of Beranger 
made him a favorite guest at his reunions, and he knew Moliere 
by heart. His first discourse as deputy made a great impression, 
both on account of its style and ideas. It is curious that the 
sensation, if we may so call it, of wealth, is so independent of its 
possession. Lafitte declared that he never felt himself rich 
except vrhen his appointments, under Peregaux, reached the sum 
of three thousand francs ; an indirect but striking proof of his 
consciousness of the relations to society incident to fortune. His 
credulous faith in the integrity of others presents a striking con- 
trast to his sao-acious insio;ht as resrards affairs. When the Duke 
of Orleans said to him, "What shall I do for you when I am 
king ?" his reply was, " Make me your fool, that I may tell you 
the truth ; " yet he entertained such implicit confidence in the 
promises of the royal candidate, that he received his embrace 
upon his accession with fraternal trust. Calm, serene, indus- 
trious as a financier, generous and honest as a man, gay and 
kindly as a companion, after forty j^ears of riches and honor, 
Lafitte found himself poor and unpopular ; and perhaps no por- 
tion of his career is more suggestive of energy of character and 
elasticity of temper than the last epoch, wherein he reti'ieved both 
his fortune and his glory. 

The power of money, thus illustrated, as a means of political 



JACQUES LAFITTE. 93 

and social influence, is not less obvious in ordinary experience. 
Kecall the scene of morbid excitement, and its infinite probable 
consequences, which a single midnight hour offers at Frascati's ; 
'^ the hard-eyed lender and the pale lendee " visible on the Ex- 
change ; the serene unity of life achieved by the philosopher 
satisfied with the freedom from care incident to a mere compe- 
tency when attended by intellectual resources; the "weary 
hours " of the millionaire ; the exalted aspect of human nature 
in the person of the man of fortune whose means are rendered 
absolutely subservient to taste and philanthropy ; the comfort of 
households upheld by honest industry ; the sublime results of 
genius when exempted from want and the bafiled spirit of the 
persecuted debtor ; the absorption of time, intellect, and feeling, 
in sordid pursuits ; — let the imagination follow to their ultimate 
issues the various incidental fruits of these several conditions upon 
the individual and society, and we have a glimpse of the vast 
agencies involved in the use and abuse of money. 

From the Bureaux du Monte de Piete to the halls of a 
national bank, from the luxurious saloon to the scpialid hovel, 
from the dashing spendthrift to the wretched miser, through all 
the diagnoses of usury and beneficence, we can trace the fluctua- 
tions of human passions and the assertion of human character in 
their most vital development. Accordingly, it is impossible to 
over-estimate the value of wisdom, integrity, and kindness, in 
pecuniary affairs. A high example in this regard is of boundless 
practical worth ; and there is no social interest so universal and 
significant as that which relates to the acquisition, distribution, 
and maintenance of wealth. The morals and science of finance, 
riglitly understood, embrace the principles of all ethics. 

The "unfortunate compliances'* which marred the unity of 
his political life ; the indifference that settles on the public 
mind in regard to a fallen minister ; the bitterness of partisan 
hostility, and the capricious alienation of popular favor, were 
all forgotten in tearful and affectionate memories, when, on the 
night of the 26th of May, 1843, it was announced in Paris that 
Lafitte was no more. He died as he had lived, amid noble and 
generous thoughts, affectionate ministrations, calm resolutions, 
and holy sentiments. The immense procession that followed to 



94 THE FINANCIER. 

Pere la Chaise, and the sad group of brilliant statesmen, authors, 
and military officers, of poor and grateful recipients of his bounty, 
of loyal citizens and intimate friends, that saw his remains de- 
posited in the tomb prepared for them, between those of Foy and 
Manuel, evidenced the ultimate appreciation of his character, 
which became more eloquently manifest in the tributes which 
Arago and the leading public men of the day spontaneously 
offered to his memory. 



THE ACTOE. 

EDMUND KEAN 



The great moral trait in Kean was a certain spirit, tenacity of 
purpose, and lofty confidence in himself, which differed widely 
from presumption or conceit — a kind of instinctive faith, that no 
force of circumstances or prescription ever quenched. This qual- 
ity, more easily felt than described, seems the prerogative of genius 
in all departments of life, and is often the only explicable inspira- 
tion that sustains it amid discomfiture and privation. It runs, 
like a thread of gold, through the dark and tangled web of Kean's 
career ; lends something of dignity to the most abject moment of 
his life, and redeems from absolute degradation his moments of 
most entire self-abandonment. Thus, when an obscure and pro- 
vincial actor, performing Alexander the Great, he replied indig- 
nantly to the sarcasm of an auditor in the stage-box, who called 
him Alexander the Little, "Yes, sir, with a great soul ! " — and 
exultingly told his wife, after his first great success in London, 
in reply to her anxious inquiry what Lord Essex thought of him, 
" D — n Lord Essex ; the pit rose to me ! " He felt that the appeal 
of genius was universal, and that which stirred in his blood de- 
manded the response of humanity. This consciousness of natural 
gifts made him spurn the least encroachment upon his self-respect, 
however poverty weighed him down, and long before fame justi- 
fied to the world his claims. He rushed forever away from the 
house of his earliest protector, because of a careless remark of 
one of the company that disavowed his equality with the children 



96 T II E A C T R . 

of tlie family. Whenever an inferior part was allotted him, he 
fled to avoid the compromise of his feelings: and, after his triumph 
was achieved, poured a bowl of punch over the stage -manager's 
head at Drury Lane, to punish his impertinent criticisms at the 
first rehearsal. The same proud independence led him to avoid 
the social honors of rank. He liked professional and literary 
men because he thought they truly relished and understood his 
art. The restraints, the cold uniformity, and the absence of vivid 
interest, in the circles of the nobility, either oppressed or irritated 
him ; and he chafed until free to give vent to his humor, passion, 
and convivial tastes, among boon companions. 

A fine audacity, and that abhorrence of the conventional we 
find in hunters, poets, and artists, — the instinctive self-assertion 
of *a nature assured that its own resources are its best and only 
reliable means of success and enjoyment, — thus underlaid Kean's 
wayward and extravagant moods ; and, while it essentially inter- 
fered with his popularity as a man, it was a primary cause of his 
triumph as an actor : for no histrionic genius more clearly owed 
his success to the will. In this regard he was a species of Alfieri. 
The style he adopted, the method he pursued, and the aim he 
cherished, were neither understood nor encouraged, until their 
own intrinsic and overAvhelming superiority won both the critics 
and the multitude. The taste in England had been formed by 
Kemble and his school ; dignity, correctness, grave emphasis, and 
highly-finished elocution, had become the standard characteristics. 
Kean was a bold innovator upon this system ; he trusted to nature 
more than to art, or rather endeavored to fuse the two. Thus, 
while carefully giving the very shades of meaning to the words 
of Shakspeare, he endeavored to personify the character, not 
according to an eloquent ideal, but with human reality, as if the 
very life-blood of Othello and Lear, their temperaments as well 
as their experience, had been vitally transferred to his frame and 
brain. He seemed possessed with the characte]; he represented ; 
and, throwing mere technical rules to the wands, identified him- 
self through passional sympathy, regulated by studious contem- 
plation, with the idiosyncrasies of those whose very natures and 
being he aspired to embody and develop. 

Kean obeyed the instinct of genius, when, in opposition to the 



E D M U N D K E A N . 97 

management at Drury Lane, arranging his debut, he exclaimed, 
'' Shylock or nothing!" In that part there was scope for his 
intellectual energy, opportunity to give those magical shades of 
intensity, and throw into those dark, acute features the infinite 
power of expression for which he was distinguished. A few weeks 
before that memorable evening, his first-born son had died in a 
provincial town, and in all the agony of his bereavement he had 
been obliged to act, to gain money to defray the funeral expenses. 
Thence he had gone up to town, and, owing to a misunderstand- 
ing of the contract, for months endured the pressure of actual 
want, and the heart-sickness of hope deferred. The season was 
unpropitious ; his spirits and energy were depressed by fasting, 
affliction, and neglect. While he was at rehearsal, his wife sold 
one of her few remaining articles of apparel to obtain him a din- 
nei^ fortified by which be trudged through the snow to the theatre. 
The series of triumphs succeeding this memorable night are well 
known. The overpowering reality of his personation gave Lord 
Byron a convulsive fit, caused an actress to faint on the stage, 
and an old comedian to weep, replenished the treasury of Drury 
Lane, electrified the United Kingdom, ushered in a new theatrical 
era, and crowned him with sudden prosperity and fame. His 
star, however, set in clouds. His last appearance in London was 
as melancholy as his first was brilliant. Alienated from his fam- 
ily, the victim of excess, — proud, sensitive, and turbulent, — his 
domestic troubles were only reconciled just before his death, 
which came as a relief to himself and those with whom he was 
connected. 

While the histrionic achievements of Kean identify his name 
with the progress of dramatic art. Lis actual life and habits per- 
tain rather to a sphere without the limits of civilization. A wild 
vein belonged to his very nature, and seemed indicative of gypsy 
or savage blood. It gleamed sometimes from his extraordinary 
eyes, when acting, so as to appal, startle, and impress, every class 
of observers. A man once cried out in the pit at the demoniacal 
glare of his optics, as Shylock meditating revenge on his creditor, 
"It is the devil!" His poet-biographer compares him to the 
van-winged hero of Paradise Lost ; and West, the painter, de- 
clared he had never been so haunted by the look of a human face 
9 



98 THE A C T R. 

as by that of Kean. Something of this peculiar trait also exhib- 
ited itself in his action and tones, and made his -audience thrill 
with the fierce energy of his soul. But while it thus subserved 
the purposes of art, and was, in fact, an element of his genius, it 
infected his private life with a reckless and half-maniacal extrav- 
agance, that was fostered by his addiction to stimulants, an unpro- 
tected infancy, and the precarious and baffled tenor of his youth 
and early manhood. 

When we bring home to ourselves this erratic behavior, com- 
bined with extreme vicissitudes of fortune, the career of Kean, 
as a man. seems almost as remarkable as it was as an actor. A 
stage-Cupid at two years of age, a circus-rider and harlequin, 
then an infant prodigy reciting Rolla ; his very origin disputed ; 
now the slave of a capricious, ignorant, and selfish woman ; and 
now the wayward protege of a benevolent lady ; arranging 
Mother Goose for one manager, and taking the part of a super- 
numerary for another ; reduced to such poverty as to travel on 
foot, his wife trudging wearily at his side, and his boy clinging 
to his back ; at one time swimpaing a river with his theatrical 
wardrobe in a bundle held by the teeth, and, at another, for 
whole days half famished, and his wife praying at her lonely 
vigils for a speedy release by death from hopeless suffering ; to- 
day dancing attendance, for the hundredth time, at Drury Lane, 
to gain the ear of the director, and known among the bystanders 
only as "the little man with the capes;" and to-morrow the 
idol of the town, his dressing-room besieged by lords, — few 
chronicles in real life display more vivid and sudden contrasts 
than the life of Kean. The mercurial temper that belonged to 
him was liable, at any moment, to be excited by drink, sympathy, 
an idea, or an incident. One night it induced him to disturb 
the quiet household where he lodged by jumping through a glass 
door ; another, to seize the heads of the leaders attached to his 
majesty's mail-coach, and attempt a wrestling-match. In Dub- 
lin, it winged his flight for hours through the dusky streets, with 
a mob of screaming constables at his heels. It inspired him to 
engage in midnight races on horseback. In more quiet mani- 
festations, it induced him to make a pet of a lion, and a sacred 
relic of the finger-bone of Cook : and prompted him, to his 



EDMUNDKEAN. 99 

"wife's extreme annoyance, to retire to bed in the costume of a 
monkey. At one time it led him to muse for hours in a church- 
yard ; and, at another, to try a country-life on his estate at Bute, 
or haunt the " Red Lion " and the " Coal-Hole.'' In England it 
made him a yoiunteer jockey at a race : in Italy, a fascinating 
story-teller and mimic to the monks of road- side convents ; and 
in America, caused him to be duly inaugurated chief of a tribe 
of Indians. 

There is no actor of whom such instances of arrogance toward 
the public and individuals are related ; but it is to be observed 
that they generally originated in exasperated feeling, caused by 
undeserved neglect or gross misappreciation ; and charity will 
ever make allowance for the inevitable results of an incongruous 
and homeless childhood. Kean's father nearly ruined his son's 
physique by employing him, at a tender age. to figure in panto- 
mime ; timely surgical aid having only saved his limbs from utter 
deformity. The redeeming influences of his early years were the 
benevolent intervention of Dr. Drury, who. recognizing his promise, 
sent him to Eton ; and the patient teachings of Miss Tidswell, 
an actress of Drury Lane. That he was born with a genius for 
the stage is evinced by the fact that at the age of thirteen his 
Cato and Hamlet satisfied provincial audiences ; and his recita- 
tion of Satan's Address to the Sun, from Paradise Lost, won 
royal approbation at Windsor. His talent for feigning served 
him occasionally more practical benefit than that derived from 
its entertaming quality ; as, when he was released from a rash 
engagement on board ship as cabin-boy, for pretended deafness, 
and escaped the indignation of a London audience, he wantonly 
disappointed, by a well-acted dislocation of the shoulder. 

If Kean's early circumstances were adverse to his moral, they 
were, in many respects, highly favorable to his professional 
development. The long apprenticeship he served to the stage, 
embracing every grade of character, and almost all functions of a 
player, made him thoroughly at home on the boards, and induced 
much of his ease, tact, and facility ; his circus experiences and 
habits of active life gave both vigor and suppleness to his frame ; 
while the vagrant career he led brought him in view of all kinds 
of character and phases of life, by which he observantly profited 



100 T II E A C T R . 

to a degree that only those intimate with him fullj realized. 
While in this country his genius excited the intelligent admira- 
tion, and his recklessness the benevolent care, of a professional 
gentleman, Dr. J. W. Francis, who became his constant associate 
and friend. From him I learn the versatility oi Kean's accom- 
plishments was quite as remarkable as the intensity of his acting 
and the extravagance of his moods. He would often enchain an 
intellectual circle, at a fashionable party, by his exquisite vocalism, 
— the effect of which was inexplicable to those who listened to his 
limited and unmusical voice, — or by the rich anecdotes or shrewd 
comments of his table-talk ; and, when released from this to him 
intolerable social thraldom, work off the nervous reaction, induced 
by so many hours of restraint, by throwing half-a-dozen sum- 
mersets with the celerity and grace of a practised harlequin. , He 
was. indeed, a compact embodiment of muscles and nerves ; his 
agility and strength were such that his frame instantly obeyed 
his will, from the bound of a gladiator to the expressive restless- 
ness of quivering fingers. His voice ranged through every note 
and cadence of power and sensibility ; now by a whisper of ten- 
derness bringing tears from callous men, and the next moment 
chilling their very hearts wdih the fierce tones of an imprecation. 
But these remarkable physical endowments would have merely 
subserved the narrow purposes of the athlete or the mimic, had 
they not been united to a mind of extraordinary sagacity and a 
face of unequalled expression; by virtue of these he rendered 
them the instruments of efficient art. The professors at Edin- 
burgh were disappointed, after seeing him perform and hearing 
him converse, to find that he had no original theory of elocution 
to broach, and no striking principles of oratoiy to advocate. His 
touches were a composite and individual result, no more to be 
formally imparted than the glow of poetry or the zest of wit ; 
they grew out of profound observation fused into a practical issue 
by the inspiration of genius. 

Coleridge said that to see Kean act was like reading Shakspeare 
by lightning. The spell of his penetrating eyes and half-Jewish 
physiognomy was not more individual than his style of persona- 
tion ; and 4he attempt to transfer some of his points to another 
has almost invariably produced an incongruous effect. His 



EDMUND KEAN. 101 

excitable temperament was another secret of his magnetism and 
his foibles. While it enabled him wonderfully to engage the sym- 
pathies of an audience, it rendered him liable to be overcome by 
the least moral or physical excitement, and made him the slave 
of impulse. Regularly, in New York, every afternoon, he seized 
the copy of an evening journal inimical to him, with the tongs, 
rang for a waiter, and sent it away in this manner ; while, at 
the same time, he scrupulously laid aside a guinea a week, during 
the whole of his sojourn, to reward the faithful services of a poor 
servant. Often drawn by his kind guardian from a haunt of 
debauchery, just in time to appear on the stage, he would, at 
others, attire himself like a finished gentleman, mix in the most 
refined society, and manifest a noble scorn of money, and an 
absolute reverence for mental superiority, that excited involuntary 
respect. Kean, the dissolute man, the inebriated boon companion, 
quoting Latin, the generous and loyal friend, the funny mimic, 
and the great impersonator of Shakspeare, seemed like so many 
different beings, with something identical in the eyes, voice, and 
stature. And as marvellous a disparity marked his fortunes ; it 
being scarcely credible that the same man, Avhose appearance 
brought a solitary sixpence to the Dumfries theatre, is he who, 
glittering with the ornaments of Garrick, filled Drury Lane to 
suffocation for entire seasons ; or that the luxurious apartments, 
crowded with men of note, are tenanted by him whose wife for 
years kept vigils of penury. It is creditable to Kean's magna- 
nimity, under these bewildering transitions, that he never played 
the tyrant; that he was uniformly kind to poor and inferior 
actors, and manifested a spirit above envy. After seeing old 
Garcia perform Othello in New York, he sent him a costly gift 
in token of his admiration ; he candidly acknowledged the superi- 
ority of Talma, and labored, with genuine zeal, to commemorate 
the histrionic fame of Cooke. 

It is common to speak of great acting or vocal ism as indescrib- 
able ; and, to a certain extent, this is doubtless true ; but dis- 
tinctness of style is characteristic of genius in all things, and an 
intellectual observer can adequately report even the evanescent 
charms of dramatic personation when harmoniously conceived and 
efficiently embodied. Accordingly, we derive, from the criticisms 
9* 



102 THE ACTOR. . 

and reminiscences of Kcan's intelligent admirers, a very clear 
idea of his general merits. It is obvious that these consisted of 
simplicity and earnestness ; that, endowed with fiery passions and 
a sagacious intellect, he boldly undertook to represent Shakspeare, 
not according to any prescriptive model or rules of art, but 
through his individual reflection and sympathy. Like the great 
master of the written drama, he followed closely the intimations of 
nature ; cast, as it were, self-consciousness away, and assimilated 
the actual elements of human life with his own action and expres- 
sion. "Hence, the truth of his violent contrasts — the li^-ht and 
shade of art. Hence, the frequency and effect of his brief, sug- 
gestive, and thrilling exclamations, that made a single word or 
interjection reveal infinite woe, joy, surprise, or madness. It is 
for the same reason that, upon refined minds and earnest hearts, 
his acting unfolded ever new beauty and truth, as described by 
Dana, upon reading whose criticism Kean exclaimed, " This 
man understands me." By this firm, and, if we may so say, subtle 
yet instinctive adherence to nature, a certain grandeur and effect, 
only yielded her genuine votaries, seemed to invest and glorify 
the actor, so that his most incidental attitudes and by-play wore 
a reality undiscoverable in the most elaborate efforts of inferior 
performers. To the same principle we ascribe his versatility. 
Each character was a distinct study. Where his consciousness 
was at fault in suggesting the most authentic manner, tone, or 
expression, he had recourse to observation ; he reflected deeply, 
and appeared to identify himself, by the process, with the being 
he was to enact, until his very soul became imbued with the 
melancholy of Hamlet, the insanity of Lear, and the mental agony 
of Othello. 



THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

THEODORE KORNER. 



On the high road near the village of Wobbelin there stands, 
beneath an oak, the Iron Monument of Theodore Korner. The 
material of which it is constructed, the simplicity of its design, 
the tree which overshadows it, and its isolated jet accessible 
position, would naturally induce an observant traveller to exam- 
ine and a contemplative one to muse beside it ; but how infinitely 
is the casual interest, thus awakened, enhanced when we recall the 
brief but thrilling history of him in whose remembrance it was 
erected, and realize how entirely the lineaments of his character 
accord with the solemn beauty of his grave ! There is often as 
much room for conjecture in regard to the absolute endowments 
of the hero as of the poet ; the fame of both is only settled by 
time ; posterity not unfrequently reverses the original decree ; 
and the frank soldier and candid bard sometimes dispel the 
charming illusions they have originated, by admitting certain 
facts of consciousness. Thus courage and inspiration are as falla- 
cious, when judged by mere appearance, as more superficial 
qualities ; accident, luck, animal excitement, vanity, and despera- 
tion, may be the only claim of the so-called hero to the title ; and 
imitation, art, and tact, form the sole attributes of him whom the 
world of to-day denominates a poet. It is rare, indeed, for these 
noblest of human distinctions to be thoroughly vindicated by the 
same individual during his life ; for genuine poetic gifts to be 
illustrated by their sensible effects upon the popular mind, and 



104 T II E Y U T n F U L II E R . 

genuine heroism to be indicated clearly in the expressed purpose, 
the thoughtful resolve, and then realized by entire self-devotion 
and volunt-irj mai'tjrdom. Such a course seems to include all 
the elements of the heroic character, and leave not the faint 
shadow of a doubt of a grand moral reality. 

There is a courage of temperament which man shares with the 
inferior animals ; that which leads the stag to stand at bay, the 
steed to rush into battle, and the mastiff and game-cock to lose 
the sense of safety in the vindictiveness of a contest. There is a 
courage of the imagination born of visions of glory, the zest of 
adventure, and the love of excitement ; and there is a courage of 
the will, the calm resolve of valor inspired by patriotism or duty, 
and thoughtfully adopted after mature reflection. In proportion 
to the danger incurred, the personal advantage relinquished, and 
the consistency of its aim, is this latter species of courage to be 
estimated. It is this which essentially constitutes the hero ; it is 
an element of character, not an impulse of feeling ; it is the 
product of the soul, not of mere physical superiority ; and exalts 
humanity by intensifying her active powers with the concentra- 
tion of intelligent moral purpose. 

Theodore Korner thus more com.pletely realized this ideal of 
the youthful hero than any character of modern times ; or rather 
left behind him the most authentic evidence and beautiful memo- 
rials of its reality. For, without reference to the mere facts of 
his life, Ave have the two most impressive revelations of his 
nature — the written thought and the noble achievement ; the sen- 
timent calmly yet earnestly expressed, and its practical embodi- 
ment ; the motive and the deed to attest the hero ; feeling 
shaping itself into deliberate action. We have successively the 
man, the poet, the soldier, and the martyr ; and it is this unity 
of development that renders Korner' s career almost unique. That 
the views he adopted were not the offspring of a heated imag- 
ination ; that the sentiments he professed arose from a deeper 
source than the hot blood of youth ; that he was perfectly con- 
scious of all he risked, and quite aware of the sacrifice he offered, 
is apparent from his literary productions, his conversations, 
letters, and consistent behavior. His education was singularly 
adapted to develop, at once, mental energy and the gentlest affec- 



THEODORE KORNER. 105 

tions ; it encouraged physical strength and aptitude, and the 
highest moral aspiration ; and hence he was capable of estimating 
for himself both the claims of duty and the charms of pleasure. 
The very atmosphere of his childhood was intellectual : his 
father, although ostensibly devoted to jurisprudence, was a man 
of the warmest literary sympathies and the highest culture : 
while his mother was the daughter of an artist. Schiller and 
Goethe were their intimate friends. The former wrote Don Car- 
los in the elder Korner's house; and not the least pleasiifg 
chapters in the lives of both authors are those which record 
anecdotes of this early intercourse, and the correspondence to 
which it led. 

Young Korner's first recollections are associated with the 
cottage in a vineyard, endeared to the three illustrious friends. 
His infancy was feeble, and he was, therefore, encouraged to 
practise manly exercises, in which he soon became an adept, 
having few equals among his companions in fencing and swim- 
ming. He was a most graceful equestrian and dancer, and excelled 
in gymnastic feats. To this admirable physical training, so essen- 
tial to the martial hero, were added the accomplishments of 
musician and draughtsman. This early instruction was derived 
altogether from private tuition. Habitual exposure to the open 
air, and the influence of nature as well as the highest social inter- 
course, combined to invigorate and refine the capabilities of his 
soul. "But judicious and comprehensive as was his education, it 
only accounts in part for the noble bias of his character. He 
very soon manifested the most decided tastes and aims, and the 
instinctive, far more than the acquired, moulded his destiny. 
Strength of mind and firmness of purpose, tenderness of heart 
and loyal attachments, soon gave promise of a characteristic life ; 
while an appreciation of science and a facility of versification 
were equally obvious mental distinctions — the one giving vent to 
his enthusiasm and sentiment, and the other discipline and scope 
to his intellect. 

Doubtless this need of an active life on the one hand, and 
mental exercise on the other, induced his first choice of a profes- 
sion, which was that of mining; and his mineralogical and 
chemical studies were followed under Werner, at Freyburg, 



106 THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

where Humboldt first entered upon his illustrious career. At 
home the companionship of his sister and her friends called out 
his gentle sympathies and delicate tastes, wljile that of his 
father's literary coteries elicited his noblest intelligence ; summer 
excursions made him familiar with the most beautiful scenery of 
his country ; and thus we have, as it were, a complete, though 
informal system of life, amply fitted to educate a poet and hero. 
It is remarkable that singular vivacity of temperament and facil- 
ity of adaptation alternated, under these influences, with a solemn 
earnestness of character. In his boyhood and first youth Korner 
was lively, but never frivolous ; he engaged with similar alacrity 
in the most sportive and most severe occupations ; soon became a 
social favorite, and yet retained the nature of a contemplative 
enthusiast. His dislike of the French, the profound melancholy 
induced by the loss of an intimate friend, who was drowned, and a 
quick sense of honor, are traits vividly remembered by his earli- 
est associates. 

His first religious pieces seem to have been inspired during a 
foot excursion amid the scenery of Silesia. At the Berlin acad- 
emy, whither he was sent after some years of varied teaching at 
home, Korner was engaged in a duel ; and the impetuosity of his 
nature, combined with the strongest poetical tendencies, led his 
father to assent to his removing to Vienna, where he was cor- 
dially received by William Humboldt and Schlegel. His rash- 
ness of spirit having become subdued by a protracted fever, and 
his domestic sympathies revived by a pleasant sojourn with his 
family at Carlsbad, he exchanged college for metropolitan life, in 
a state of mind peculiarly fitted to render it both useful and 
happ}^. His cheerful temper, fine personal appearance, poetical 
reputation, and good birth, gave him every advantage at the out- 
set of his brief yet brilliant career at the capital ; but these only 
served him as the initiative steps of fame ; and, after supporting 
himself for some months by means of his scientific attainments, 
he began to write for the stage. He was not less fortunate in the 
kind of discipline to which his boyhood was subjected. This was 
voluntary. He was never thwarted ; his reason, his honor, and 
his tastes, were appealed to, and his will thus conciliated. To the 
absence of fear in youth we ascribe the manly freedom of his 



THEODORE KORNER. 107 

nature. The only authority claimed over him was that of love. 
His parents were companions not less than guides ; they respected 
his idiosyncrasies, and only sought to keep him in true rela- 
tions with nature, humanity, and God. Hence his faults were 
always those of excess, never of calculation ; he was sometimes 
rash, but knew not a mean instinct ; and the freshness and energy 
of his soul were preserved intact. Education only ripened and 
called out original endowments. 

The spirit of enjoyment is more active at Vienna than in any 
city of Grermany. If its libraries, museums, and galleries of art, 
give it intellectual character, its Prater, thronged with recreating 
groups, including every class, from the emperor to the humblest 
citizen, and boasting the richest corso in Europe, the prevalence 
of music as a pastime, the number of theatres, and the social taste 
of the people, render Vienna the centre of genial and varied life ; 
while the devotees of art or letters often pursue their respective 
objects at Leipsic or Frankfort with isolated enthusiasm and 
earnest individuality, the tendency of the social atmosphere and 
prosperous activity at Vienna is to make the artist or man of 
letters an eflScient and sympathetic intelligence, inspired by and 
giving impulse to the circles of fashion, taste, and conviviality. 
There lived Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven ; and. if their deeper 
revelations were born in the solitude of their own consciousness 
and the intensity of thoughtful emotion, doubtless the zest of life 
and the human interest around them yielded some of the mystic 
threads which link their harmonies to the universal heart. Into 
this enjoyable sphere Korner brought not only his own rare 
endowments of mind and character, but the iwest'ige of good con- 
versation and attractive manners. To feel the high and pleasura- 
ble excitement of writing successfully for the stage at this period, 
and in such a metropolis as Vienna, we must remember that the 
theatre was the central point of interest to all classes, the theme 
of enlightened criticism, the object of tasteful appreciation. Those 
who illustrated its power, in any department, with real genius, 
were sure, not only of professional rewards, but of social estima- 
tion. The theatre was peculiarly a national institution, and a 
fashionable and literary nucleus endeared by habit, association, 
and sympathy, to the most cultivated and respected, as well as 



108 THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

the pleasure-loving citizens. The seeds of thought and senti- 
ment in the mind of young Korner seemed to flower, all at once, 
in the encouraging sphere, and amid the inviting intercourse here 
opened to him. 

His first efforts were light two-act pieces -written in Alexan- 
drines, of which the ''Bride" and the "Green Domino'' had 
such success that he began soon to meditate a more elaborate and 
finished production. At this era his time passed in a delightful 
alternation of study and society ; idolized in the latter, he brought 
to the former all the ardent and noble feeling and facility of 
expression which characterized his nature ; and while the one 
elicited his sportive and companionable graces, the other gave 
impulse to the more intense and thoughtful moods of his soul. 
An immediate and intelligent appreciation, like that which awaits 
the successful dramatic author in Germany, and the social privi- 
leges and sympathy awarded him in Vienna, naturally excited 
the enthusiasm of Korner. and, when he was appointed poet to 
the theatre, his fortune and position were truly eminent; but 
ambition was only a secondary inspiration, for two sentiments 
glowed in his heart, and gave the utmost eloquence to his expres- 
sion. He was a genuine patriot and lover ; and at this brilliant 
epoch, the companionship of his betrothed, the ardent devotion of 
his friends, .and the new-born spirit of liberty that stirred the 
breasts of his countrymen, all united to quicken and evoke his 
genius. Time has proved that its most legitimate offspring was 
lyrical poetry. The directness, harmony, and spontaneous origin, 
of this kind of verse, accorded with the frank earnestness of his 
character, and more faithfully mirrored his inward life than the 
elaborate and studied drama. Yet one remarkable triumph in 
the latter style he soon achieved. 

The tragedy of Zriny, whatever may be its imperfections as a 
work of art, is memorable as the composition of a youth, and as 
the deliberate record of his most profound sentiments. The period 
of this play is 1566, and the action is first at Belgrade, and then 
in and before the Hungarian fortress of Sigeth, which is heroic- 
ally defended by Nicholas Yon Irving, against Soliman. Lorenzo 
Juranitsch, the former's lieutenant, is the betrothed of his daugh- 
ter, whose character, as w^ell as that of her mother, are deline- 



THEODORE KORNER. 109 

ated with a grace and truth worthy of a poet's discriminatiDg 
estimate of woman. The character of Lorenzo Juranitsch is 
doubtless Korner's own ideal ; and the plot of the drama, in a 
striking manner, typifies his destiny. Indeed, the most emphatic 
passages of the tragedy are identical with the views, feelings, and 
purposes, he cherished, as uttered in familiar conversation and 
letters. In a literary point of view, the distinct characterization, 
the fine contrast between the oriental .scenes and those in the 
Hungarian fortress, the powerful and consistent tone of self-devo- 
tion maintained by Zriny and his followers, the intense coexist- 
ence of love and duty, are traits so happily manifest as to have 
seized at once on the popular feeling. 

The play may be justly considered as an exposition of heroism, 
and what gives it a permanent interest is the fact that it em- 
bodies the habitual state of mind, foreshadows the sacrifice and 
glows with the very soul of the author. It also not inadequately 
represents the prevalent sentiment of Germany at the period. 
The flames of Moscow had kindled the dormant valor of northern 
Europe ; deep indignation against her conqueror now found vent 
in action, and the love of country was thoroughly awakened ; a 
spirit of self-consecration and a holy as well as martial zeal, such 
as the poet so well describes as nerving the Hungarian patriots 
of the tragedy, pervaded all hearts; so that ''Zriny" may be 
regarded as vividly reflecting, not only the individual conscious- 
ness of the poet, but the public sentiment of his country. An im- 
pressive proof of the harmony betw^een Korner's expressed and 
acted sentiments, between his character and writings, is the coin- 
cidence in tone and feeling of the letter he addressed his father 
after his valorous resolve, and some expressions that fall from the 
chief actors in " Zriny : " 

" I -would depart but as a hero should, 
In the full splendor of my boldest love." 

*' What is there for us higher in this world 
That's left untasted in our hallowed wishes? 
Can life afford a moment of more bliss ? 
Here happiness is transient as the day. 
On high eternal as the love of God." 

10 



110 THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

*• For as with other slaves 'tis nature's law, 
The vital ajr is the demand of life, 
So, maiden, is his honor to a man." 

" For nothing is too precious for our countiy.'* 

" Rash ! nay, I am not so — 
Yet am I venturous and bold for love, 
And all enthusiast for my fatherland." 

*' That I devote myself to death were little — 
My life I oft have ventured in the hazard ; 
But that I do so, 'mid such joy and pleasure, 
'Mid happiness and highest earthly bliss. 
This is the struggle, this deserves the prize — 
My country may be proud of such an offering." 

" I will clasp 
The form of death with arms of youthful love, 
And bravely press it to my youthful breast." 

" For fate may shatter the heroic breast, 
But it can awe not the heroic will ; 
The worm may creep, ignobly, to its rest, — 
The noble mind must fight and triumph still." 

" 0, do not harshly chide with fate, my daughter. 
But rather trust its kind paternal favor. 
Which hath permitted us by this ordeal 
To prove, like gold, our purity of heart." 

"Vienna, March 10, 1813. 

"Dearest Father: 

" I write to .you respecting an event "which I feel assured will 
neither surprise nor shock you. I lately gave you a hint of my 
purpose, which has now arrived at maturity. Germany rises ; 
the Prussian eagle, by the beating of her mighty wings, awakes 
in all true hearts the great hope of German freedom. My poetic 
art sympathizes for my country ; let me prove myself her worthy 
son ! Yes, dearest father, I will join the army, will cheerfully 
throw aside the happy, joyous life which I have here enjoyed, in 
order with my blood to assist in the deliverance of my country. 
Call it not impetuosity, levity, rashness. Two years since, it is 
true, I should have termed it thus myself ; but now that I know 
what happiness can ripen for me in this life ; now that the star 
of fortune sheds on me its most cheering influence ; now is it, by 



THEODORE KORNER. HI 

Heaven, a sacred feeling -which inspires me, a conviction that no 
sacrifice can be too great to insure our country's freedom. Pos- 
sibly your fond paternal heart may say, ' Theodore is meant for 
better things ; , in another field he might have accomplished 
objects more worthy and important ; he owes as yet a weighty 
obligation to mankind.' But, father, my conviction is, that for 
the death-ofiering for the freedom and honor of our country no 
one is too good, though many are too base. If the Almighty 
have, indeed, inspired me with a more than common mind, which 
has been taught and formed by thy care and affection, where is 
the moment when I can better exert it than now ? A great age 
requires great souls, and I feel that I may prove a rock amid 
this concussion of the nations. I must forth and oppose my 
daring breast to the waves of the storm. 

" Shall I be content to celebrate in poetry the success of my 
brethren while they fight and conquer ? Shall I write entertain- 
ments for the comic theatre, when I feel within me the courage 
and the strength to take part in the great and serious drama of 
life ? I am aware that you will siifier much ; my mother too 
will weep ! May God be her comfort ; I cannot spare you this 
trial. I have ever deemed myself the favorite of Fortune ; she 
will not forsake me now. That I simply venture my life, is but 
of little import ; but that I offer it, crowned as it is with all the 
flowery wreaths of love, of friendship, — that I cast away the 
sweet sensation* which lived in the conviction that I should never 
cause you inquietude or sorrow, — this is, indeed, a sacrifice which 
can only be opposed to such a prize — our country's freedom. 
Either on Saturday or Monday I depart, probably accompanied 
by friends, or possibly H. may despatch me as a courier. At 
Breslau, my place of destination, I meet the free sons of Prussia, 
who have enthusiastically collected there, under the banner of 
their king. I have scarcely decided, as yet, whether I join the 
cavalry or infantry ; this may depend upon the sum of money 
which may be at my disposals As to my present appointment 
here, I knoAV, as yet, nothing certain ; possibly the prince will 
give me leave of absence ; if not, there is no seniority in art, and 
should I return to Vienna, I have the assurance of Count Palfy 
that still greater advantages of a pecuniary nature await. Ante- 



112 THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

nia has, on this occasion, proved the great, the noble character 
of her soul. She weeps, it is true, but the termination of the 
campaign will dry her tears. My mother must forgive me the 
tears I cause her : whoever loves me will not censure mo ; and 
yoUj father, will find me worthy of you. 

u rpjjY ThEODOKE." 

At the very outset of their march, after joining his regiment, 
they bivouacked in a graveyard ; one of the mounds was his pillow, 
and over another his horse stumbled, and it was regarded by the 
superstitious observers as ominous. When his sister, who was pos- 
sessed of much artistic skill, and whose grief for his loss wore away 
her life, was painting his likeness, she suddenly wept, declaring 
that she saw his head bleeding. He wrote to a friend on. the eve 
of his departure, "If I shall never again be in Meadows, perhaps 
I shall soon be on the green, and quite peaceful, quite still ! " 
Indeed, even the most thoughtless of the students who, with all 
the ardor of youth, threw themselves into the impending strug- 
gle, were aware of the truth of Kiirner's declaration, " Every 
second man of us must die." AVith him this self-devotion was 
no sudden fit of martial enthusiasm, but the cherished purpose of 
years ; many allusions in his letters and familiar talk afterwards 
became clear to his friends. He had felt deeply the misfortunes 
of his country, and pondered on the duty of a citizen, until it 
was his firm resolve to embrace the first occasion to fight, and, if 
needful, to die for his native land. The summons came when 
the goblet of life sparkled to the brim', when his mind and heart, 
his affections and his intellect, were thoroughly and genially 
absorbed ; yet he hesitated not a moment, but enrolled himself in 
Lutzow's corps. 

Few episodes in literary history, or rather in the biography 
of genius, have a more complete and harmonious moral beauty 
than the whole life of Theodore Korner. There is no won- 
derful precocity suddenly eclij^ed by decay ; no finale of 
insanity turning the sweetest melody into horrible discord ; no sad 
compl'omise between the dreams of youth and the calculations of 
interest; all is sustained, noble, and consistent; — a childhood 
enriched with high acquisitions and refined by domestic love ; — 



THEODORE KORNER. 113 

a youth developed "with freedom in an atmosphere of truth ; 
genuine relations with nature and humanity ; cheerfulness, intel- 
ligence, fortitude, and self-devotion ; a unity of being that pre- 
sents a remarkable contrast to the fragmentary, baffled, and too 
often incongruous experience of the gifted and the brave. It is 
affecting, and, at the same time, sublime to recall the happy life 
of the young poet at "Vienna, environed by the delights of social 
and literary fame, the cordialities of hospitality, the consolations 
of friendship, the sweet communion of love, and then behold it 
suddenly yet calmly exchanged for hardship, peril, and death. 
Amid the pleasurable excitements of the gay capital, instead of 
being enervated, he was nerved. 

It was his custom to retire to the neighboring village of Dob- 
linger to write. "I always work in the garden." he says, 
"where I am now writing this letter. A thicket of chestnut 
trees spreads its cooling shade around me, and my guitar, which 
hangs behind me on the next tree, employs me in those moments 
when I cease to write." Antonia, his betrothed, appears to 
have united the most charming domestic feelings with that heroic 
spirit that endeared her to her lover. He used to visit her after 
his morning's labor, quit her presence to dine with Humboldt, or 
some other genial savan, pass the evening either at a party or 
the theatre, and return home to prosecute his literary task, his 
correspondence, or his studies. Love and art exclusively reigned 
in his soul. Yet, in accordance with that law by which the reac- 
tion of enthusiasm is inevitably melancholy, Korner often turned 
from the external sunshine of his lot to realize a gloom within. 
He had a distinct presentiment of early death, although with 
characteristic heroism it seldom found other than playful expres- 
sion. When he was digging the foundation of a temporary hut, 
his comrades said to him, " You dig like a grave-digger ; " and 
he replied, " "We ought to practise the trade, for we shall doubt- 
less have to render, each for the other, that labor of love." 

These noble volunteers, comprising the flower of the German 
youth, were consecrated to the high office they had espoused, at 
the village church of Breslau ; and the muse of their gallant 
comrade gave utterance to their religious zeal as well as to their 
patriotic sentiment. The popularity and influence of his martial 
10* 



114 THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

songs had already endeared his name, not only to this chosen 
band, but to all his brave countrymen. At leisure intervals he 
wrote other lyrics suggested by the exigencies or feelings of the 
moment, and selected appropriate melodies that soon winged 
them, like seeds of valor, throughout the land. He made a final 
visit to his family at Dresden, before the regiment departed ; and 
we next hear of him thus anticipating a premature death, after 
the battle of Darmeburg : 

" FAREWELL TO LIFE. 

WBITTEN IN THE NIGHT OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE, AS I LAY SEVBRELT 
■WOUNDED AND HELPLESS IN A WOOD, EXPECTING TO DIE. 

My deep wound burns — my pale lips quake in death — 

I feel my fainting heart resign its strife, 

And reaching now the limit of my life, 
Lord, to thy will I yield my parting breath. 

Yet many a dream hath charmed my youthful eye : 

And must life's fairy visions all depart ? 

0, surely, no ! for all that fired my heart 
To rapture here shall live with me on high. 

And that fair form that won my earliest vow, 
That my young spirit prized all else above. 
And now adored as freedom, now as love. 

Stands in seraphic guise before me now ; 

And, as my fading senses fade away, 

It beckons me, on high, to realms of endless day ! " 

Few heroic lyrics exhibit a more genuine spirit than the "Sword 
Song," and "Liitzow's Wild Chase." The former was written 
on the eve of the eno;aD!;ement in which he fell. He was sendinf]r 
it to a friend, when the signal of attack was made, and it was 
found in his pocket-book after his death. The tirailleurs of the 
enemy fired from a dense grove ; a ball, passing through the neck 
of his horse, entered Korner's spine, and he instantly expired. 
So immediate was the cessation of life, that the expression of his 
countenance remained unchanged when the body was carried off 
the field. One of his heart-stricken friends cried, "Let us fol- 
low Korner ! " and they rushed upon the ambushed enemy with 
desperate valor. Adored by his companions in arms for his 



THEODORE KORNER. 115 

delightful social qualities, as well as for his transcendent gifts and 
peerless courage, with silent grief they dug his grave beneath a 
majestic oak by the road-side, and carved his name on its trunk. 
With this noble tree the memory of Korner is indissolubly asso- 
ciated ; as indigenous to, and characteristic of, his country, it 
possessed for him a singular charm ; and, in the luxuriance of its 
summer foliage, shaken off so bravely to meet the winter gale, it 
is an apt symbol of the young hero cheerfully throwing aside the 
prosperous crown that decked his brow, to war for liberty. One 
of his pieces derives a melancholy interest from the subject, that 
deepens its intrinsic pathos : 

"THE OAKS. 

'Tis evening — all is hushed and still ; 

The sun sets bright in ruddy sheen ; 
As here I sit, to muse at will 

Beneath these oaks' unbrageous screen ; 
While wandering thoughts my fancy fill 

"V\^th dreams of life when fresh and green, 
And visions of the olden time 
Revive in all their pomp sublime. 

While time hath called the brave away. 

And swept the lovely to the tomb ; 
As yonder bright but fading ray 

Is quenched amid the twilight gloom — 
Yet ye are kept from all decay, 

For still unhurt and fresh ye bloom. 
And seem to tell, in whispering breath, 
That greatness still survives in death ! 

And ye survive ! — 'mid change severe. 

Each aged stem but stronger grows. 
And not a pilgrim passes here, 

But seeks beneath your shade repose. 
And if your leaves, when dry and sere, 

Fall fast at autumn's wintry close, 
Yet every falling leaf shall bring 
Its vernal tribute to the spring. 

Thou native oak, thou German tree. 

Fit emblem, too, of German worth ! 
Type of a nation brave and free. 

And worthy of 'their i^tive earth ! 



116 THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

Ah ! what avails to think on thee, 

Or on the times when thou hadst birth ? 
Thou German race, the noblest aye of all, 
Thine oaks still stand, while thou, alas ! must fall ! " 

The mineralogical excursions and hardy exercises of Korner 
proved an admirable initiation to military service ; and habits of 
activity and metliod soon made him thoroughly eflBcient in his 
new vocation. It is remarkable that his was the first blood shed 
after joining the corps ; having been sent with a flag of truce, in 
violation of the armistice, he received a wound without drawing 
his sabre ; and it is also worthy of notice, as illustrating the hor- 
rors of war, that he fell, as has been subsequently discovered, by 
the shot of one of his own countrymen in the enemy's ranks. 
How beautiful, in the retrospect, is the short, but illustrious career 
we have thus imperfectly traced ; how truly deed responded to 
thought, and experience to sentiment, in Korner's life ! Generous 
and devoted feelings exalted him above the bitterness of disap- 
pointment ; his days were occupied with acts of high utility, and 
his nights in lofty contemplation. 

He used to steal away from the bivouac to the forest, to think 
of those he loved ; and, when overcome by the pleadings, tender- 
ness, and the desire for sympathy, he sought refuge in heroic 
aspirations or pious thought. "If it has been denied me," he 
writes, "to kneel with my bride at the altar, a bride of steel has 
been intrusted to me, to whom I have sworn eternal truth." 
This calmness and resolution is the more striking when we 
picture Korner to our fancy, charming a seiect circle with his 
guitar, or his amateur performance of the Swedish Captain in 
"Wallen stein," and writing pieces for Humboldt's children ; and 
realize his adaptation to the peaceful happiness of domestic and 
artist life. The total change in his pursuits and enjoyments is 
best revealed by his letters, varying in date but a few months. 
Thus at one time he writes from Vienna: "Would I could have 
seen you all in a box yesterday ! The finest feeling is that of 
composition itself: next to this ranks the satisfaction of seeing 
one's work represented with affection and skill ; the loftiest lies 
in the conviction that one has seized the souls of others." "I 
amuse myself here divinely.;, am 'always engaged a week before- 



THEODORE KORNER. 117 

hand; and, I may saj, am quite the rage." And soon after, in 
this strain: "A great moment of my life is approaching. Be 
convinced you shall find me not unworthy of you when the trial 
comes." And again from the camp: "The corps already smg 
several of my songs, and I cannot describe to you how agreeable 
is the relation in which I live, as the most cultivated and select 
minds of all Germany are near me in rank and place." 

The union of strength of moral purpose and sensibility of feel- 
ing in Korner's character was obvious in his appearance, and 
exhibits itself vividly in his poems. His dark hair shaded a brow 
open with truth and prominent with intelligence, but, in moments 
of determination, knit by a concentrated will : and his blue eye 
could wear a dauntless as well as a most gentle expression. Con- 
scious of the apparent incongruity at times in his behavior, he 
thus naturally explains it in one of his letters: "If you, per- 
chance, have occasionally conceived me to be deficient in warmth 
of heart, my external manner has deceived you. Too warm to be 
grave, and too proud to appear weak, I find I am often exposed 
to be mistaken, because it is not known why I am thus appar- 
ently severe and capricious ; both of these moods being in fact 
only a relief to the overflow of my feelings." 

Korner, fortunately, left us a faithful index of his nature in 
his poems. There we recognize both his heroism and his love in 
their elemental and spontiineous action ; and two of them — one 
written on parting with his chosen bride, and the other embody- 
ing the religious sentiment that hallowed his patriotism — give 
us, as it were, a key to the apparent antagonism, but real and 
divine consistency, of his sentiments : 

*' Farewell, farewell ! — with silent grief of heart 

I breathe adieu to follow duty now ; 
And if a silent tear unbidden start, 

It will not, love, disgrace a soldier's brow. 
Where'er I roam, should joy my path illume. 
Or death entwine the garland of the tomb, 
Thy lovely form shall float my path above, 
And guide my soul to rapture and to love I 

hail and bless, sweet spirit of my life. 

The ardent zeal that sets my soul on fire ; 
That bids me take a part in yonder strife. 

And for the sword a while forsake the lyre. 



118 THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

• For, sec, tliy minstrel's dreams were not all vain, 

Which he so oft hath hallowed in his strain ; 
see the patriot-strife at length awake ! 
There let me fly and all its toils partake. 

The victor's joyous wreath shall bloom mere bright 
That 's plucked amid the joys of love and tong ; 

And my young spirit hails with pure delight 
The hope fulfilled which it hath clierished long. 

Let me but struggle for my country's good. 

E'en though I shed for her my warm life-blood. 

And now one kiss — e'en though the last it prove ; 

For there can be no death for our true love I " 

"PRAYER DURING BATTLE. 

Father, I invoke thee ! 
I am involved in clouds of vapor from the warring mouths of fii"e, 
The lightnings of those thunderbolts flash around me. ' 

Ruler of battles, I invoke thee ! 

Father, lead me on. 

Father, lead me on ! 
Conduct me to victory ; conduct me to death ! 
Lord, I recognize thy will ! 

Lord, conduct me as thou wilt ! 

God, I acknowledge thee ! 

God, I acknowledge thee ! 
As in the autumnal whisper of the leaves. 
So in the storm of the battle. 

Thee, primeval fountain of grace, I recognize ! 

Father, 0, bless me ! 

Father, 0, bless me ! 
Into thy hands I commend my life ! 
Thou canst take it away, thou didst give it ! 

In living and in dying, bless me ! 

Father, I worship thee ! 

Father, I worship thee ! 
It is not a combat for the goods of this world ; 
The most sacred of things we defend with the sword ; 

AVherefore, falling or conquering, I worship thee ! 

God, to thee I resign myself ! 

God, to thee I resign myself ! 
If the thunders of death salute me. 
If the blood flow from my opened veins. 

To thee, my God, I resign myself ! 

Thee, Father, I invoke ! " 



THEODORE KORNER. 119 

Among the many epithets that may justly be given to our 
times, is that of the age of discrimination. Analysis is now uni- 
versal ; new definitions increase, and shades of meaning in char- 
acter are observed and noted by the philosophic with no less care 
than the elements of matter by men of science : all subjects are 
tested either by the clever method of French nomenclature, the 
spii'itual refinements of German thought, or the bold rhetoric and 
\dgorous sense of the Anglo-Saxon mind. Perhaps no human 
trait has become so modified to common apprehension by this 
intellectual process as courage. It is now needful that some- 
thing beyond bold adventure, impetuous warfare, or even patient 
endurance, should exist, in order to gain the renown of bravery. 
We hesitate at the action to search its motive : the temperament, 
intelligence, experience, and moral sensibility, of the individual 
are taken into account before we admit his claims to the title of 
hero. 

Whoever has carefully read Foster's " Essay on Decision of 
Character," De Quincey's " Treatise on the Ciesars," and Car- 
lyle's " Hero- Worship," — all books of the day and more or less 
popular, — cannot fail to discriminate somewhat between the indi- 
cations of rashness and determination, ferocity and self-control, 
impulse and hardihood, in judging of those who occupy the fore- 
ground of history. Heroism is now regarded as a higher quality 
than instinct ; as truly characteristic of Dante as Nelson, less 
questionable in Sir Thomas More than in Murat, and quite as 
obvious at Valley Forge as at Waterloo. With all the subtle 
distinctions, however, that modern enlightenment finds between 
real and apparent heroism, there are a few absolute principles 
that stamp the indisputable hero ; and among these are a thorough 
consciousness of the hazard incurred, a voluntary self-renuncia- 
tion, a deliberate purpose consistently followed, and an honest 
zeal based on individual sentiment. Thus intellect, will, and heart, 
combine to mould the hero, and infonn his character with an 
ardor, a harmony, and a nobleness, equally removed from fanati- 
cism on the one hand and mere hardihood on the other. Where' 
the first development of this spirit is social and literary, and its 
subsequent phase action and martyrdom, the cycle of heroic 



120 THE YOUTHFUL HERO. 

life is adequately filled, its conditions realized, and its fame 
achieved. 

Such was the case with Theodore Korner. The vivacity of 
his mind first exhibited itself in comic pieces, that amused the gay 
Viennese, and wafted the young author prosperously along the 
flattering tide of metropolitan success; his critics, however, 
attached to them little intrinsic value ; but some of the minor 
poems scattered through the four volumes, published by his father 
after his death — most of them written before the age of twenty- 
two — are permanently enshrined in the literature of his country ; 
they prove the sincerity of his after course ; in them are manifest 
the fiery assailant and the poetical lover ; while the more elaborate 
di'amas of " Rosamund '' and " Zriny "' unfold at length the 
same innate vigor of the will and the afiections — the one inducing 
fortitude, and the other tenderness. The spirit of chivalry and 
pathos, thus emanating from the poet, were actualized by the 
soldier; and this is Korner's beautiful distinction. His " Sword 
Song " became the Marseilles Hymn of Germany ; and he bravely 
fought the battle of truth and liberty with the lyre and the sword 
— thenceforth and forever blended with his name. 



THE MECHANICIAN 

ROBERT FULTON. 



A CELEBRATED geographer speaks of the State of New York as 
an epitome or type of the whole country — representing the grand 
scale of its waters, the productiveness of its soil, and the pictu- 
resque beauty of its scenery. An analogous character may be 
recognized in the intellectual history of the state. Without the 
universal mental culture and the special literary development of 
New England, New York has given birth to men remarkable for 
comprehensive minds and social efficiency, such as Hamilton, 
Livingston, Jay, Morris, and Clinton; with whom originated 
liberal schemes of polity, and a great system of internal improve- 
ments. They proved wise and eloquent advocates of our national 
welfare; and justice refers us continually to their important ser- 
vices as the basis of much of our existent prosperity, freedom, 
and advancement. " There was a scope, hospitality, and self- 
respect in their character, which betokened a noble race ; and their 
names ever awaken sentiments of patriotic elation. It seems not 
less appropriate that a region of inland seas, with an ocean on 
one side and a vast extent of country on the other, — the state 
that links the eastern and western portions of the confederacy, 
and whose metropolis is the commercial port of the nation,^ — 
should have been the scene of triumph to the mechanician who 
first successfully applied steam to navigation, and thus supplied 
the grand desideratum to our physical resources and social unity. 
The interests of agriculture, commerce, and education, were inti- 
11 



122 THE MECHANICIAN. 

mately dependent on the experiment. Facility of intercourse 
between the island of Manhattan and the banks of her two rivers 
instantly enlarged her local poAver, while we arc only now begin- 
ning to realize the political influence and new avenues of wealth 
incident to the same rapid and frequent communication with Eu- 
rope and the Pacific. Both the results and the origin of Fulton's 
inventive energy are, therefore, naturally associated with New 
York ; and the corporation of the city did but respond to a uni- 
versal public sentiment when they gave his name to the thorough- 
fare extending through three sections of as many cities brought 
together by steam ferriage. The first steamboat voyage through 
Long Island Sound and up the Hudson, as well as the launch of 
the first steam-frigate, are among the memorable reminiscences 
upon w^hich our elder citizens yet expatiate with enthusiasm, 
while the waters around now literally swarm with the improved 
and restless progeny of those comparatively recent achievements : 

*' See how yon flaming herald treads 

The ridged and rolling waves, 
As, clambering o'er their crested heads, 

She bows her surly slaves ! 
With foam before, and fire behind. 

She rends the clinging sea. 
That flies before the roaring wind, 

Beneath her hissing lee. 

With dashing wheel and lifting keel, 

And smoking torch on high. 
When winds are loud and billows reel. 

She thunders foaming by ; 
When seas are silent and serene, 

With even beams she glides. 
The sunshine glimmering through the green 

That skirts her gleaming sides." 

The Patent Ofiice at Washington affords an extraordinary 
demonstration of the predominance of mechanical talent in the 
country ; but it is in special and limited machines, in refinements 
upon old inventions, and in cleverness of detail, that this aptitude 
is chiefly indicated; there is more evidence of ingenuity than 
genius. Yet this characteristic of the American mind, w^hicl" 
reached its acme in Franklin, is not without its higher types of 
development ; men who unite to a taste for mechanics a compre 



ROBERT FULTON. 123 

hensive view of their utility and possible results ; who have com- 
bined with a knowledge of material laws a rare sagacity in their 
application; and possessed both the faculty to invent and the 
enthusiasm and strength of moral purpose to advocate inventions 
of a kind essentially adapted to modify society, and advance the 
condition of the whole world. Such mechanicians are philoso- 
phers as well as artisans, and work in the spirit of a broad and phil- 
anthropic intelligence. They illustrate most effectively the true 
dignity of labor, by relieving humanity of its greatest burdens, 
and enlisting brain as well as muscle, and nature's mysterious 
agency not less than man's intelligence and hardihood. 

Such a character was Robert Fulton, manifesting, through life, 
the ardor and pertinacity of a comprehensive enthusiast, united 
with the patient assiduity of a practical mechanic. Born in a 
secluded township in the interior of Pennsylvania, and indebted 
for his early instruction exclusively to a common school, it is nat- 
ural that his sagacious and active mind should have embraced 
the sources of culture afforded by observation and thought with 
singular avidity. He studied in the woods, by the road-side, and 
in solitude, feeding his imagination by communion with nature, 
and his intellect with such waifs of knowledge as came in his 
way, and readily assimilated with his tastes; for, like all men 
of decided traits, Fulton seems to have been a nonconformist by 
instinct, and to have delighted in original ideas and individual 
opinion. The only means his isolated boyhood yielded for grati- 
fying the artistic tendency of his mind was painting, into which 
he was initiated by a school-fellow, in a very crude and ineffective 
way, but sufficiently to give scope and incitement to his talent. 
With the facility thus acquired he removed, while a youth, to 
Philadelphia, and, in the course of four years, earned a sum ade- 
quate to the purchase of a farm in the interior of the state, upon 
which he established his widowed mother. On his return to the 
city, he visited some celebrated springs for his health, which had 
become seriously impaired by labor and exposure ; and there met 
several intelligent gentlemen, who became so much interested in 
the promise and agreeable manners of the young artist, that they 
counselled him to hasten to London, and place himself under the 
teaching of his then renowned and prosperous countryman — 



124 THE MECHANICIAN. 

West. This advice he followed without delay, met with a cordial 
reception from the benign painter, and passed some years in his 
family. From London he went to Devonshire, and practised his 
art for a considerable period ; but while there " a change came 
o'er the spirit of his dream." Never having greatly excelled in 
painting, and having a natural love of enterprise, his late social 
advantages had enlarged his views, and excited a deep and intelli- 
gent interest in plans of broad, practical utility. Before leaving 
home he had enjoyed the friendship of Franklin, who, indeed, 
first introduced him to West. With his mind thus quickened by 
the companionship of men of superior gifts and extensive ideas, 
while passing through the manufacturing towns of England he 
heard of the success of Arkwright's invention. His practical and 
at the same time imaginative mind took in, at a glance, the possi- 
ble influence of manufactures upon human welfare, the new ave- 
nues to wealth incident to mechanical skill, and the extraordinary 
natural advantages of his own country as the arena of great im- 
provements in political as well as social economy. An acquaint- 
ance formed at this period with the Earl of Stanhope and the 
Duke of Bridgew^ater — names honorably identified with recent 
improvements in inland navigation — tended still more to confirm 
Fulton's resolution to devote his energies to mechanical science. 
Accordingly, he began by experiments with the inclined plane as 
a means of canal transportation, invented a machine for sawing 
marble, one for spinning flax, one for making rope, another for 
scooping earth, and published a treatise, in 1796, on Canal Navi- 
gation. These, and other of Fulton's early labors in the new field 
he had chosen, were more or less recognized and honored. He 
obtained patents and medals, and, what was of equal importance 
to his future success, the confidence and sympathy of many per- 
sons of influence. It is to be regretted that the written memo- 
rials of this part of his life, when he was engaged in the study 
and observation upon which his subsequent career was based, were 
lost by shipwreck on their way to this country. In pursuance 
of the course he had now earnestly adopted, Fulton repaired to 
Paris, and there formed a Life-long friendship with Joel Barlow, 
then our minister at the court of France, with whom he long 
resided. Here he was soon absorbed in experiments to perfect a 



ROBERT FULTON. 125 

scheme of submarine explosion, and sought the aid successively 
of the French, English, and Dutch governments, which appointed 
commissioners to examine the invention. In each case the report 
Tvas adverse to its practical utility, yet Fulton continued to im- 
prove upon the original conception, invented a submarine boat to 
act in concert with the torpedo, and exhibited the greatest inge- 
nuity and dauntless ardor in prosecuting this favorite scheme for 
a series of years, both at home and abroad. Already an accom- 
plished draftsman, he macf^ himself an efficient civil engineer 
while in Europe, studied physics, mathematics, and perspective, 
and returned to New York, in 1807, where he immediately began 
a series of attempts to perfect the application of steam to naviga- 
tion, and to enlist the government in behalf of his plans of naval 
w^arfare. In the midst of his most active usefulness, after the 
triumph of his great invention, while contending for his right to 
a share of the vast emolument it already began to yield, and 
while enjoying the recognition and the domestic happiness which 
were the just reward of a life devoted to objects intimately con- 
nected with human w^elfare, in the prime of his usefulness, honor, 
and life, he died. It is said that this event called forth more 
public tokens of respect and sorrow than ever before attended the 
demise of a private citizen in the same city and state. If this 
was the case, it may be attributed, in a measure at least, to a con- 
sciousness of worth unappreciated, and character misunderstood ; 
for, although Fulton had several friends whose devotion knew no 
bounds, it is undeniable that political and local prejudice, and a 
narrow view of his claims and purposes, rendered not a few of his 
countrymen insensible to his genuine value until death revealed 
to them the singular combination of moral energy, noble feeling, 
and inventive genius, which distinguished Robert Fulton. To 
realize this it is necessary to transcend the brief outline we have 
given, and surve}^ his qualities together. 

It is a very narrow view of Fulton's claims to grateful respect 
which estimates them solely according to the degree of originality 
he manifested in the application of steam to navigation. The idea 
is probably of older date than any of the records or traditions 
regarding it ; for so favorable a project was it with men of science 
and experimental mechanics, that w^e read of attempts to realize it 
11* 



126 THE MECHANICIAN. 

in various countries, and on the part of different individuals 
obviously unknown to each other. The great fact in the contro- 
versy remains indisputable, that the only inventor who perse- 
vered in giving a practical use to the knowledge already gained 
on the subject, and continued to try expedients until crowned 
w^ith a success which introduced steam navigation to the world, 
was Robert Fulton. Never having claimed that the idea was 
original with him, and always having openly recognized the 
efforts of his predecessors, this acknowledgment is no disparage- 
ment to Hulls, whose treatise on the subject appeared in London, 
1737 ; to De Garay, whose experiment in the harbor of Barce- 
lona is alleged to have been made in 1543 ; to the Swiss clergy- 
man, the French nobleman, the three Scotchmen, and the two 
other Americans, whose right to be considered inventors of the 
steamboat have been so strenuously advocated. 

The same mutual dependence and slow advancement to a great 
end is exemplified in two inventions, which have, as it were, 
created manufactures. Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning- 
jenny, after experimenting, as an obscure watchmaker, in a pro- 
vincial town, upon theories of perpetual motion, accidentally met 
with Kay, who had long tried in vain to perfect a spinning- 
machine ; and when they cooperated, the result was achieved. 
Yet Arkwright, though he left an enormous fortune, the fruit of 
his inventive skill, was charged with unjustly appropriating the 
ideas of others. Kay, doubtless, originally conceived the notion of 
such a machine, but to the timely pecuniary means furnished the 
poor watchmaker by a gentleman of Liverpool, and the practical 
ingenuity he brought to the aid of his comrade's theory, is due 
the successful issue. Whitney proved beyond a doubt that, while 
on a visit to Georgia, he shut himself up in a room of the hospi- 
table mansion of a friend, and toiled for months to contrive a 
machine for removing the seeds of the cotton-plant ; yet. when 
his object was accomplished, his originality was denied, his model 
surreptitiously imitated, and his claims to a patent disputed. It 
was only after several lawsuits, and that tardy justice which time 
and patience bring, that his title to the invention of the cotton- 
gin was established. 

It is a common error to attribute mechanical invention to a 



ROBERT FULTON. 127 

happy chance ; hut no branch of human pursuit more directly 
originates in the calculating energy of the mind. It is the result 
of practical thinking ; and the greatest inventors assure us that 
the intervals of their experimental toil are occupied with intense 
meditation upon the means and ends, the relation of matter and 
laws, or the process of overcoming a special difficulty. Whitte- 
more. the inventor of the card-machine, one of the most ingen- 
ious and intricate of inventions, after having accomplished every- 
thing desired except bending the wires, was completely baffled ; 
the subject haunted him day and night, and he declares that, 
while pondering upon it, he fell asleep, and the method came to 
him in a dream, which he instantly adopted on waking, and w^ith 
entire success. Blanchard. the clever boy, who, at the age of 
thirteen, invented a machine for paring apples, based on observa- 
tion of the graduating action of the thumb, when the process was 
done by hand ; while riding in a wagon and musing on the obsta- 
cles to manufacturing gun-stocks by machinery, suddenly con- 
ceived the whole principle of turning irregular forms, and cried 
out, like Archimedes, at the idea, which he afterwards realized 
and patented. Watt's early practice as a mathematical instru- 
ment-maker, and his subsequent studies as an engineer, prepared 
him to improve so essentially the steam-engine. The naval 
architecture of Eckford, the Eddystone lighthouse, — that mon- 
ument of Smeaton's scientific temerity, — the bridges of Edwards 
and Remington, the kitchen apparatus of Count Rumford, and 
the momentous discoveries of Faust, Jenner, and Daguerre, are 
not to be regarded as accidental triumphs of mere ingenuity, but 
as the results of patient study, numerous experiments, and intel- 
ligent resolution. It is the same with the mills of Evans, the 
water machinery of Slater, the clocks and globes of Ferguson, 
the steam-guns of Perkins, the safety-lamp of Davy, and almost 
every successful application of natural laws to mechanical apti- 
tudes, whether by self-educated or professedly scientific men. 
We are apt to look only at the achievement, and disregard the 
process, which is often gradual, complicated, and only attained 
through earnest study and long experience. A certain natural 
shrewdness is doubtless characteristic of the mechanical inventor, 
and to the prevalence of this trait has been reasonably ascribed 



128 T II E M E C II A N I C I A N . 

the facility and productiveness of the New Englanders in this 
branch of labor ; but it is not less owing to their remarkable per- 
severance and energy. "It is through the collation of many 
abortive voyages to the polar regions," says De Quincey, "that a 
man gains his first chance of entering the polar basin, or of run- 
ning ahead on the true line of approach to it." 

Thus the history of mechanical inventions and the annals of 
the law of patents evince a gradual approximation to success, in 
almost every instance, and prove that a division of labor and a 
union of talent is the usual process of discovery, and essential to 
practical results. Accordingly, the litigation and rival claims to 
originality, which almost invariably follow the introduction of any 
new machine into use, are the inevitable result, not of plagiarism 
so much as simultaneous ideas, and the fact that the ostensible 
inventor is only an eclectic in mechanics, and skilfully brings 
together the scattered or fragmentary principles of a variety of 
minds. But this is generally accomplished through patient self- 
devotion, and by overcoming great and incessant difficulties ; and 
therefore it is quite just, under ordinary circumstances, that the 
man who brings a great scientific idea, or mechanical project, to a 
wholly successful practical development, should reap the largest 
share of honor and emolument. 

Genius may strike out novel and promising hints, but they are 
useless to mankind until embodied and applied by consistent and 
pertinacious thinkers ; in this, as in other departments of social 
welfare, character must often appropriate and apply the fruits of 
talent ; and the union of both in one individual is as rare as it is 
auspicious. Constructiveness is a distinct tendency and gift, but, 
in Older to realize mechanical originality in its highest phase, the 
principles of science must be brought into action. It is on this 
account that the greatest inventions have sprung from the mutual 
labors of the scientific and the practical. A knowledge of the 
principle and aptitudes of the lever, wheel, inclined plane, screw, 
wedge, rope, and other natural forces, becomes infinitely more 
available when combined with equal intelligence in hydraulics, 
meteorology, and electro-magnetism. Through such an acquaint- 
ance with the laws of matter, human genius sways its energies, 
and makes it subservient to purposes of utility and enjoj-ment ; 



EGBERT FULTON. 129 

and these triumphs have reached such an extent as to signalize 
the age in which we live. The written scrolls that alone pre- 
served the wisdom and poetry of antiquity, the old quarries of 
Sicily, the fragmentary arches on the Roman campagna, the 
beacon towers on the hills of Spain, and even the old crones that 
twirl the distaff in the sun around the Bay of Naples, yet remind 
us of the epoch when the art of printing, the railroad, Croton 
pipes, the electric telegraph, and the loom, were unknown. One 
of the '• world's gray fathers " might be lost in admiration at the 
sight of the equipments and architectural beauty of a modern 
ship ; but his sense of wonder would deepen into veneration when 
he beheld the self-impelling force in her hold, and the needle 
trembling to the pole in her compass, because of the wise advan- 
tage thus practically taken of two great natural laws ; bringing 
a mechanical contrivance into the realm of science, and yoking 
the very elements into the service of man ! 

The career' of the inventive mechanician exposes him to pecu- 
liar trials, not only of patience, but equanimity. The artist and 
author can privately test their works, before hazarding a public 
ordeal ; but the public nature and great expense of the artisan's 
experiments render it often indispensable to submit himself to a 
kind of scientific jury, and sometimes to an ignorant and curious 
throng ; the least failure, is, therefore, attended with singular 
mortification. Fulton experienced an unusual share of such 
discouragement ; he prematurely exhibited his submarine appa- 
ratus to government commissioners, including such men as Sir 
Joseph Banks and Laplace ; while his attempted negotiations 
with Pitt and the agents of Napoleon, as well as with his own 
government, were continually baffled. From individuals and 
societies he, however, obtained frequent sympathy and aid ; and, 
while disappointed in the issue of many favorite projects, his 
incidental successes and the final triumph of his great design 
thoroughly vindicated his claims to the world. 

For many years Fulton had thought, written, and acquired all 
possible information, with a view to the experiments which he 
assiduously tried on the Hudson, and one of his first conceptions 
seems to have been the use of paddle-wheels. The trial trip of 
the Clermont, so called from Mr. Livingston's domain near Hyde 



130 THE MECHANICIAN. 

Park, is yet memorable on the shores of the noble river now cov- 
ered with elegant specimens of the same craft.* The British 
reviews were facetiously sarcastic when Colden's Life of Fulton 
appeared, chiefly on account of the enthusiastic view there taken 
of the effects of this invention upon the destinies of the world. 
Subsequent events, however, wholly justify the prophetic eulogy. 
The navigation of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and of the 
Mississippi river, by steam, is producing such changes in the 
course of empire and the w^elfare of society, that the imagination, 
as w^ell as the reason, is baffled in contemplating ulterior results. 
It was a conviction of the extensive social benefits obtainable from 
mechanical science, that impelled and sustained Fulton in his 
career. This is evident from his written opinions, from the plans 
he advocated, and the arguments he invariably used, to advance 
his objects. His mind was comprehensive and philanthropic not 
less than ingenious ; and it was by the inspiration of these senti- 
ments that he achieved his triumphs. We have had countless 
fellow-countrymen of a mechanical turn, but no one w^ho united 



* The following letter, in reference to this event, was addressed by Fulton to 
Joel Barlow, Philadelphia : 

" New York, August 2, 1807. 

" Mt dear Friend : My steamboat voyage to Albany and back has turned 
out rather more favorable than I had calculated. The distance from New York 
to Albany is one hundred and fifty miles ; I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and 
down in thirty. The latter is just five miles an hour. I had a light breeze 
against me the whole way going and coming, so that no use was made of my 
sails ; and the whole voyage has been performed by the power of the engine. I 
overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward, and passed them as if 
they had been at anchor. 

" The power of propeUing boats by steam is now fully proved. The morning I 
left New York, there were not, perhaps, thirty thousand people in the city who 
believed the boat would ever move a mile an hour, or be of the least utility. And 
while we were putting off from the wharf, which was crowded with spectators, I 
heard a number of sarcastic remarks. This is the way, you know, in which some 
people compliment what they call philosophers and projectors. 

" Having employed much time, and money, and zeal, in accomplishing this work, 
it gives me, as it will give you, great pleasure to see it so fully answer my expec- 
tations. It will give a cheap and quick conveyance to merchandise on the Missis- 
sippi and Missouri rivers, which are now laying open their treasures to the enter- 
prise of our countrymen. And although the prospect of personal emolument has 
been some inducement to me, yet I feel infinitely more pleasure in reflecting with 
you on the immense advantage that my country will derive from the invention.'' 



ROBERT FULTON. 131 

with such a taste so genuine and earnest a public spirit. This 
was evinced everywhere and on all occasions. Thus, when in 
France, he corresponded with Carnot to persuade him to adopt 
the principles of free-trade ; his leisure in Paris was devoted to 
the execution of the first panorama ever seen there, a branch of 
art since widely cultivated, and one to the scientific value of 
which Humboldt gives eloquent testimony. He wrote an urgent 
appeal to the citizens of Philadelphia to purchase West's pictures 
as the foundation of an American gallery : and, failing to enlist 
their aid, bought the two most characteristic of them himself, that 
his country might possess some evidence of her first artist's skill, 
and bequeathed them and his other works of art to the Academy 
of New York. He induced West to make designs for Barlow's 
ponderous epic, and had them engraved and the work published 
at his own expense. His avowed object in the torpedo invention, 
which he carried forward from one tried during the Revolution, 
was to annihilate war by rendering it absolutely instead of rela- 
tively destructive. His cable-cutter, plans for floating docks, and 
other incidental enterprises, show an indefatigable activity in the 
intervals of his mifre important scheme. He impaired his consti- 
tution by too long a fast while repairing his submarine boat, in 
France, after a storm ; and his life was sacrificed to the impru- 
dent zeal with which he travelled, at mid-winter, from Trenton, 
where his great law-suit was pending, and the exposure incurred 
in superintending the construction of his original steam-frigate. 

Thus intent upon some great undertaking, the philosophy of 
which he eloquently expounded, while its practical details 
absorbed his active faculties, he pursued his way unbafiled by 
repeated failures, and undiscouraged by poverty and ridicule. 
He possessed the sublime patience of genius, maintained his 
cheerfulness under the failure of successive experiments, and 
manfully lived down the obstacles that crowded his path ; now 
ardently reasoning for the freedom of the seas, like a statesman, 
and now sketching a grotesque figure by the road-side in Hol- 
land, like a vagrant artist ; now trying his long disused pencil 
upon the portrait of a friend, and, again, alarming a crowd by 
explaining the explosive power of a submarme battery ; on the 
waters of the Seine, in the harbor of Rotterdam, about the quays 



132 T II E M E C H A N I C I A N . 

of New York, his thin, active figure glided to and fro, as he 
directed some experiment, while his dark eye glowed, and his un- 
covered hair fluttered in the wind over his projecting brow, and 
some gazed on with frigid curiosity, others with a shrug of com- 
passionate incredulity, and a few with intelligent admiration at 
the enthusiasm, simplicity, and confidence of genius. We are not 
surprised that when he received the first passage-money overpaid 
for a steamboat trip, in the little cabin of the Clermont, he shed 
tears at the tangible evidence of a public recognition of the suc- 
cess of his experiment, the crowning achievement of a life of 
study, disappointment, and irrepressible ardor. The latter quality 
is doubtless attributable to Fulton's Irish origin, as well as the 
instinctive and generous feeling which endeared him to his friends. 
He not only won but retained attachment, and was fortunate, even 
under the most adverse circumstances, in having the sympathy of 
men of character and talent. Franklin and West cheered his 
early life, and its maturity was sustained by the cooperation of 
Livingston, whose sister he married. 

The charge made against Fulton's patriotism and honorable 
consistency, in regard to his offer of his submarine invention to 
different foreign governments, appears to have been quite gratui- 
tous. It is evident from his writings, and the well authenticated 
history of his life in Europe, that his great object was to create 
a reputation, and perfect inventions there, with a view^ to return 
with them to his own country. At that period no aspirant, either 
in letters, science, or art, could fail to perceive how requisite for 
success in the New World was an endorsement from the Old ; and 
the superior facilities there afforded in every branch of study, as 
well as the greater sympathy extended to the original inquirer 
and the gifted votary, were equally obvious. In each instance 
that Fulton contracted with a foreign power for aid in his torpedo 
experiments, and guaranteed, in case of success, the exclusive 
benefit of the invention, he made a special exception in favor of 
his native land. Thither he sent the written results of his studies ; 
and it was with his own countrymen that he united himself in 
almost every useful project. Few Americans of that day were so 
alive to the extraordinary local aptitudes and unequalled natural 
advantages of this continent. It would seem as if a wise Provi- 



. ROBERT FULTON. 133 

dence raised up this energetic mechanical genius at the very 
moment that more rapid and frequent intercommunication became 
essential, not only to the prosperity, but to the nationality of a 
country destined to form a new, grand, and free arena for 
humanity. His keen and comprehensive glance took in the 
immense line of sea-coast, the vast and numerous inland lakes, 
and the mighty rivers of states embracing every variety of 
climate, soil, and natural resource ; and he felt, and earnestly 
announced the conviction, that only by an intercourse at once 
easy, cheap, rapid, and constant, would it be possible to render 
produce available, to bring the inhabitants into sympathetic rela- 
tions, and to stamp unity of expression and character upon the 
nation. The steam-engine and the electric telegraph hava 
wrought this miracle : and illustrated signally in this country 
the truth of a statesman's assertion, that mechanical power is the 
vital principle of the age. This is not only evident in physical 
results; by creating" leisure through economizing human labor, 
by rapidly transmitting intelligence, and multiplying the means of 
security, progress, and development, mechanical genius not only 
emancipates man from the tyranny of nature, but continually 
multiplies her beneficent agency in his behalf 

It is usual to consider imagination and reason in an antagonis- 
tic view ; but the analysis of character and genius often reveals 
their mutual action and united result. To the inventive mind, 
in all departments of science and art, ideality is essential as the 
faculty which prefigures and anticipates what, if only realized by 
actual degrees, would scarcely sustain the courage and hope of 
the seeker. Hence the enthusiasm, the prophetic spirit, and the 
confidence of genius — founded on prescience, on the vision of the 
" mind's eye." Thus imagination gives enlargement and foresight, 
and is the source of inspiring presentiment. To wholly practical 
and unsympathetic men, however, those endowed by nature with 
this ardor, faith in the unachieved, and earnestness in its pursuit, 
are stigmatized as visionary until crowned with the garland of 
success, when the loudest scofiers are usually most extravagant 
in their laudation. All innovators upon the ordinary belief and 
practice of mankind pass through this ordeal. Columbus was but 
a dreamer in the estimation of his countrymen until he discovered 
12 



134 T II E M E C n A N I C I A N . 

a continent. Had Franklin announced his electrical theory before 
provided with evidence to uphold it, or Davy his nitrous oxide, or 
Morse his telegraphic chirography, they would have shared the 
same convenient title. Fulton endured an unusual share of indif- 
ference, not to say contempt, while prosecuting his mechanical 
researches. It is related that when he applied, in his native city, 
to a celebrated polemic for contributions toward steam-navigation 
experiments, that his eloquent argument in behalf of the cause 
was answered by the oracular theologian with the complacent 
statement that his own mind was absorbed in an inquiry of so 
much greater importance, namely, the discovery of all the facts 
relating to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that he could not 
attend to so idle a proposition. A few years have elapsed since 
the interview, and the polemic's thick octavo on the book of Dan- 
iel is already covered with the dust of oblivion ; while the fruits 
of Fulton's constancy and genius are transforming the aspect of 
the earth, and giving wings to the progress of civilization. But it 
was his fate not only to contend with the scepticism of the learned, 
and the prejudices of the ignorant, who gave him the name of 
" crazy Fulton ; " he also encountered, though with a dignified 
and urbane patience highly creditable to his manhood, the slights 
of the moneyed aristocracy. This incubus upon social progress in 
a republic is doubtless a necessary, but in all probability a tem- 
porary evil, incident to the early stage of national development in 
a free country devoted to commerce. There is, however, an essen- 
tial opposition between the spirit of trade and the victories of 
intellect. In the former, attention to details and routine is the 
law of success ; in the latter, superiority to immediate interests, 
and absorption in large and difficult undertakings of prospective 
utility, are equally requisite. Yet pecuniary means, which in 
this country are in the hands of the mercantile class, are often 
absolutely necessary to the cause of experimental science and art ; 
and their votaries are, therefore, placed in a position of depend- 
ence which the very nature of the case renders galling to self- 
respect. The poverty of Fulton and his humble origin, as well 
as his utter indifference to the distinction of mere wealth, rendered 
him an inauspicious suitor to power based on money. He regarded 
mechanical science as an interest so vital to human welfare that it 



ROBERT FULTON. 135 

should be deemed a privilege and not a tax to promote it ; and 
wealth, in his estimation, was only a means ; its devotees, there- 
fore, found little that was congenial in the noble mechanician, and 
amused themselves with what they considered his pretensions, 
instead of reaping honor by generous cooperation with him in his 
great designs. Among professional men, however, he was 
respected and beloved to an extent that amply consoled him under- 
all social disparagement. The address of his friend, the celebrated 
Addis Emmett, in his argument for Fulton's rights as a patentee, 
when he urged him to call back his thoughts from inventire 
speculation and patriotic schemes, and remember what was due to 
his family, is one of the most affecting personal appeals on 
record ; and is said to have been profoundly impressive in delivery. 
It eloquently assures us of the contemporary estimation in which 
Fulton was held by those capable of appreciating original merit. 
In Chancellor Livingston, also, he found, not only a consistent 
friend, but an efficient coadjutor ; and, although his experience of 
the '^ law's delay " was sufficient to damp the ardor of a less 
mercurial temperament, and embarrassment and vexation continued 
to baffle him to the last, his serene firmness of purpose and genial 
animation of heart remained intact. He lived his own life, and 
was true to the reigning impulse of his nature. It was, there- 
fore, by virtue of his character that he achieved his purposes, not 
less than through inventive talent. He persevered bravely in 
following truth to a practical issue, and thus bequeathed an incal- 
culable benefit to mankind, and conferred permanent honor upon 
his country and his name. 



THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER 

JOHN CONSTABLE. 



The quiet and isolated life of a genuine landscape painter has 
seldom been more consistently illustrated than in the memoirs of 
John Constable. His letters, collected and arranged by his friend 
Leslie, open to our view an existence ideal in spirit, and the more 
remarkable from the absolute contrast it affords to the frivolous, 
versatile, and bustling social atmosphere in which it was chiefly 
passed. Indeed, it may be said to embody the most natural and 
characteristic phase of English life — the rural sentiment, if we 
may so call it ; for to Constable this was the inspiration and the 
central light of experience. He first rises to the imagination as 
"the handsome miller" of a highly-cultivated and picturesque 
district in Suffolk ; and, since Tennyson's charming poem of the 
''Miller's Daughter," a romantic association easily attaches itself 
to that vocation. To the young artist, however, it was actually 
a better initiation to his future pursuit than might readily be sup- 
posed. Two phases of nature, or rather the aspects of two of her 
least appreciated phenomena, were richly unfolded to his observ- 
ant eye — the wind and sky ; and to his early and habitual 
study of these may be ascribed the singular truthfulness of his 
delineation, and the loyal manner in which he adhered, through 
life, to the facts of scenery. 

It seems to us that the process by w^hich he arrived at what 
may be called the original elements of *his art is identical with 
that of Wordsworth in poetry ; and his admiration of the bard 



JOHN CONSTABLE. 137 

arose not more from just perception than from the possession of 
a like idiosyncrasy. They resemble each other in discovering 
beauty and interest in the humblest and most famiHar objects ; 
and in an unswerving faith in the essential charm of nature under 
every guise. Thus the very names of Constable's best pictures 
evince a bold simplicity of taste akin to that which at first brought 
ridicule, and afterwards homage, to the venerated poet. A mill, 
with its usual natural accessories, continued a favorite subject 
with the painter to the last ; and he sorely grieved when a fire 
destroyed the first specimen that his pencil immortalized. A 
harvest-field, a village church, a ford, a pier, a heath, a wain, — 
scenes exhibited to his eye in boyhood, and to the daily vision of 
farmers, sportsmen, and country gentlemen, — were those to which 
his sympathies habitually clung. No compliment seems ever to 
have delio-hted him more than the remark of a strano;er in the 
Sufiblk coach, "This is Constable's country." His custom was 
to pass weeks in the fields, and sketch clouds, trees, uplands — 
whatever object or scen# could be rendered picturesque on can- 
vas ; to gather herbs, mosses, colored earth, feathers, and lichens, 
and imitate their hues exactly. So intent was he at times in 
sketching, that field-mice would "creep unalarmed into his pockets. 
But, perhaps, the natural beauties that most strongly attracted 
him were evanescent ; the sweep of a cloud, the gathering of a 
tempest, the effect of wind on corn-fields, woods, and streams, 
and, above all, the play of light and shade. So truly were these 
depicted, that Fuseli declared he often was disposed to call for his 
coat and umbrella before one of Constable's landscapes represent- 
ing a transition state of the elements. 

His fame gradually widened. The artists of Paris first appre- 
ciated his excellence ; and it has been said that he " was as much 
the originator of modern French landscapes, as Scott was of 
French romance." When he came in after a day's sketching, he 
would sometimes say, "I have had a good skying." His clouds 
best attest the rarity of his skill, as well in the lucent depths as 
when completely efi"ulgent. 

If there be a single genuine poetic instinct in the English mind, 
it is that which allies them to country life. The poets of that nation 
have never been excelled either in rural description or in con- 
12* 



138 THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER. 

vejing the sentiment to -which such tastes gave birth. What we 
recognize in Constable is the artistic development of this national 
trait. We perceive at a glance that he was " native here, and to 
the manner born." There is an utter absence of exaggeration, — 
at least in the still life of his pictures, — while no one can mis- 
take the latitude of his atmospheres. Thej are not American, 
nor European, but thoroughly English. A great source of his 
aptitude was a remarkable local attachment. He not only saw 
distinctly the minute features of a limited scene, or a character- 
istic group of objects, but he loved them. He had the fondness 
for certain rural spots which Lamb confessed for particular 
metropolitan haunts ; and, therefore, it was not necessary for 
him, in order to paint wdth feeling, to combine scattered beauties, 
as is the case with less individual limners, nor to borrow or 
invent accessories to set off his chosen subject; but only to 
elicit, by patient attention, such favorable moments and incidents 
as were best fitted to exhibit it to advantage. 

In this way, few painters have done mor^ to suggest the infinite 
natural resources of their art. Its poetry to him was two-fold, 
consisting of the associations and of the intrinsic beauty of the 
scene. There is often evident in genius a kind of sublime com- 
mon sense — an intuitive intelligence, which careless observers 
mistake sometimes for obstinacy or waywardness. Constable 
displayed it in fidelity to his sphere, notwithstanding many 
temptations to wander from it. He felt that portrait and histor- 
ical painting were not akin either to his taste or highest ability ; 
and that the ambitious and elaborate in landscape would give no 
scope to his talent. In his view Art was not less a thing of feel- 
ing than of knowledge ; and it was a certain indescribable senti- 
ment in the skies of Claude, and the composition of Ruysdael, 
that endeared them to him more than mere fidelity to detail. 
Accordingly, he labored with zest only upon subjects voluntarily 
undertaken, and to which he felt dra,wn by a spontaneous attrac- 
tion ; and over these he rarely failed to throw the grace of a 
fresh and vivid conception. The word ''handling" was his aver- 
sion, because he saw no evidence of it in nature, and looked upon 
her loving delineator as working, not in a mechanical, but in a 
sympathetic relation. "There is room enough," he says, "for a 



JOHN CONSTABLE. 139 

natural painter. The great vice of the present day is bravura — 
an attempt to do something beyond the truth." Harvest-men 
were to him more charming than peers ; and the rustle of foliage 
sweeter than the hum of conversaziones. 

In the foreground of a picture of a cathedral, described by 
Leslie, "he introduced a cuxumstance familiar to all who are in 
the habit of noticing cattle. With cows there is generally, if not 
always, one which is called, not very accurately, the master coW; 
and there is scarcely anything the rest of the herd will venture 
to do until the master has taken the lead. On the left of the 
picture this individual is drinking, and turns with surprise and 
jealousy to another cow approaching the canal lower down for 
the same purpose. They are of the Suffolk breed, without horns ; 
and it is a curious mark of Constable's fondness for everything 
connected with his native county, that scarcely an instance can 
be found of a cow in any of his pictures, be the scene where it 
may, with horns." " Still life," says his friend Fisher, on the 
receipt of one of his pictures, "'is always dull, as there are no 
associations with it : this is so del iciously fresh ^ that I could not 
resist it." These epithets reveal the secret of Constable's effects. 
lYhat truly interests us, derives, from the very enthusiasm with 
which it is regarded, a vital charm, which gives relish and ini- 
pressiveness even to description in words, and far more so in 
lines and colors. The "cool tint of English daylight" refreshes 
the eye in his best attempts; "bright, not gaudy, but deep and 
clear." It is curious that the term "healthy" has been applied 
to Constable's coloring — the very idea we instinctively associate 
with the real landscape of his country. 

A newspaper, describing an exhibition of the Royal Academy, 
thus speaks of one of his pictures, and it gives, as far as words 
can, a just notion of his style of art : "A scene without any 
prominent features of the grand and beautiful, but with a rich, 
broken foreground sweetly pencilled, and a very pleasing and 
natural tone of color throughout the wild, green distance." The 
inimitable Jack Bannister said of another, that " from it he could 
feel the wind blowing on his face." Constable was delighted 
with the pertinacity of a little boy, who, in repeating his cate- 
chism, would not say otherwise than, "and walk in the same 



140 THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER. 

fields all the claj^s of my life ;" he declared, '' Our ideas of 
happiness are the same." He also recorded his earnest assent to 
the remark of a friend, that " the whole object and difficulty of 
the art is to iinlte imagination with nature.^'' In one of his 
letters, he says : "I can hardly write for looking at the silvery 
clouds." Speaking of one of his own landscapes, he indulges in 
a remark, the complacency of which , may be readily forgiven : 
'' I have preserved God Almighty's daylight, which is enjoyed 
by all mankind, excepting only the lovers of old dirty canvas, 
perished pictures at a thousand guineas each, cart-grease, tar, 
and snuff of candle." 

It is thus obvious that he pursued his art in a spirit of inde- 
pendence, and with a manly directness of purpose, which neither 
fashion nor interest for an instant modified. The sentiment which 
impelled him w^as the love of nature, and this, like the other 
love referred to by Shakspeare, "lends a precious seeing to the 
eye." It was not a vague emotion, but a definite attachment; 
and he possessed the rare moral courage to act it out. This the 
biography of artists convinces us is true wisdom. It would have 
been only the folly of a perverse ambition for Constable to have 
emulated the old Italian masters, and produced saints, madonnas, 
and martyrs. The scenery of his native country was not more 
familiar to his eye than endeared to his heart : and so attentively 
and fondly had he explored it that he used to declare he never 
saw an ugly thing, w^hose intrinsic homeliness was not relieved by 
some effect of light, shade, or perspective. His delight in nature 
was, indeed, inexhaustible. He has been quaintly said to have 
known the language of a windmill ; and the most common forms 
of architecture, the most familiar toils of the husbandman, and 
the ordinary habits of animals, wore significance to his eye, because 
of the vast and intimate beauty amid which they are visible, and 
with which they are associated. Simplicity was his great charac- 
teristic, giving birth to that truth to himself which involves and 
secures truth to nature, both in art and in literature. His taste 
was permanently opposed to the factitious and the conven- 
tional, and never swerved in its allegiance to the primal and 
enduring. 

Landscape painting, in its best significance, is a representation 



JOHN CONSTABLE. 141 

not only of the form and aspects, but of the sentiment of nature. 
If we regard it in its broad relations, it may be said to have a 
scientific and national value, as the authentic image of the features 
of the universe, modified by climate, vegetation, and history, 
eminently illustrative to the naturalist and the statesman. There 
are few departments of art more suggestive. The camel group 
and palm-tree of Eastern scenery, the snowy peaks of Alpine 
mountains, the luxuriant foliage of the tropics, and the ruined 
arch, shrine, and aloe, of southern Europe, each, m turn, convey to 
the mind of the spectator hints that imagination easily expands 
into entire countries. To the patriotic sympathies its appeal is 
inevitable ; and the portfolios of travellers often contain the most 
satisfactory memorials of their pilgrimage. Few, except artists, 
however, realize the variety of meaning and the characteristic in 
scenery ; and the number who recognize the minor and shifting 
language of the external world is still more limited. Yet even 
the insensible and unobservant, during a voyage, and when con- 
fined to a particular spot and isolated from society, will sometimes 
note attentively many successive sunsets, or the effect of the sea- 
sons upon a familiar prospect, and thus gradually awaken to that 
world of vision through which, when more preoccupied, they 
move almost unconscious of its ever-changing expression. 

The eloquent work of Ruskin on the modern painters, whether 
its theories are accepted or not, ably unfolds the extent of interest 
derivable from this subject ; but there is one common instinct to 
the gratification of which it ministers more than any branch of 
art — that of local association. A good picture of a birthplace, 
the scene of early life, of historical incident or poetical associa- 
tion, is invaluable ; and this feeling has been greatly deepened by 
the transition of the art from graphic imitation to a picturesque 
reflection of the sentiment of a landscape. Herein lies its poetry. 
It is this soulful beauty that gives an undymg charm to the sun- 
sets of Claude, and has created an epoch in art by the glorious 
effects of Turner. Indeed, the ; ideality of the English mind has 
nowhere asserted itself more successfulhr than in her school of 
modern landscape. Morland and Gainsborough set an example 
of truth and feeling, which has been carried onward by such 
painters as Wilson and Constable. Genuine simplicity, — that 



142 THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER. 

manly Anglo-Saxon freedom from extravagance, and repose upon 
nature, — in such works is as clearly revealed as in the nobler 
literature and wholesome habits of the nation. 

There is a beautiful harmony between the character and pur- 
suit of Constable. His time was given only to art and domestic 
life, the routine of which knew no variation, except an occasional 
visit to Sir George Beaumont or Fisher. His capacity to inspire 
lasting attachment — a quality which seems to be the birthright 
of genius — is delightfully apparent in his correspondence with 
the latter friend. " Dear Constable," he whites, when the artist 
was in trouble, " you want a staff just now; lean hard on me." 
The integrity of true affection is also manifest in his intercourse 
with the object of his early and latest love. The patience, self- 
respect, and gentleness, with which they endured the long and 
unreasonable opposition to their marriage, — the unfailing comfort 
imparted by their mutual regai«d, the blending of good sense, 
principle, and sentiment, in their relation to each other, from 
first to last, — are results only obtainable where generous, affec- 
tionate, and intelligent natures coalesce. The painter's love of 
children, humorous mention of his cat, constant kindness to a 
poor organist and unfortunate paint-grinder — his longings for 
home when absent — his delight there in the intervals of his toil 
— his charities, friendliness, and geniality, accord with the sweet- 
ness of his taste. 

" Whenever I find a man," says Milton, " despising the false 
estimates of the vulgar, and daring to aspire in sentiment, lan- 
guage, and conduct, to what the highest wisdom in every age has 
taught us as most excellent, to him I unite myself by a sort of 
necessary attachment." By such a process Constable mainly 
rose in art, and kept the even tenor of his life. The apprecia- 
tion of his artistic merits was very slow, as is obvious from the 
number of pictures in his studio at the time of his decease. Con- 
temporary artists criticized oftener than they commended him. 
His ideas of his art, as expressed in conversation and in his lec- 
tures, were " caviare to the general." His election as an acade- 
mician was a deserved honor, but somewhat grudgingly bestowed. 
His finances were often at the lowest ebb, his domestic cares 
unceasing; illness frequently weighed down his spirits, and 



JOHN CONSTABLE. 143 

bereavements caused his heart to bleed again and again, especially 
when his wife followed his parents to the land of shadows. But-, 
through all, he lived in his affections and his art, with rare fidel- 
ity and singleness of heart ; and his friends, and the beauty of 
his pictures, will long reflect his genial, serene, and consistent 
nature. 



THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME 

CHATEAUBRIAND. 



FRANgOIS-AuGUSTE ViCOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND associated 

his name with so many places and ideas, that almost every one, at 
some time or other, is drawn into an imaginative relation with 
him. The picture which first caught my eye, on entering the 
Louvre, was one representing an aged monk and a handsome youth 
about to commit the body of a lovely maiden to a grave, obviously 
hollowed by themselves, in the verdant depths of a forest. The 
pious tranquillity of the aged priest, the despairing grief of the 
young lover, and the exquisite loveliness of the corpse, instantly 
revealed that unity of effect which leaves an indelible impression 
On turning to the catalogue, I found the painting entitled "The 
Burial of Atala." With this souvenir of Chateaubriand, encoun- 
tered within a week of landing in Europe, is linked the memory 
of the only Breton I ever knew. We stood together on the Cam- 
panile at Venice, and, while discussing that curious impulse which 
assails nervous organizations when looking down from a height, 
and induces an almost irresistible desire to leap, he calmly ob- 
served that it was his intention to gratify the propensity, in a few 
moi^ths, by springing from the precipitous cliff that bounded his 
family domain in Brittany. Many days of previous intercourse 
with this suicidal youth had revealed a thoughtful, self-possessed, 
and highly cultivated mind, that forbade my ascribing his remark 
to mere eccentricity ; and his melancholy view of life and his fine 
endowments associate him in . my recollection with his gifted 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 145 

countryman, who, at -a similar age, ''arrested the fowling-piece 
with a tear." 

• Chateaubriand owed his first literary fame to American sub- 
jects ; through him our country assumed a poetical interest to 
European minds — although, it must be confessed, this lesult is to 
be ascribed rather to the fancy and enthusiasm than the authen- 
ticity of the writer: Lafayette had just returned to France, and 
awakened there a sentiment of glory in behalf of the new repub- 
lic whose liberties he had assisted to rescue ; and, while this feel- 
ing was yet prevalent, appeared the vivid descriptions of nature 
and the forest-life of the distant continent, from the glowing pen 
of Chateaubriand. The vicissitudes of his career, the tenacity of 
his- opinions and sympathies, his extensive wanderings, and espe- 
cially the remarkable identity of the man with his country and 
the age, render his memoirs of unusual interest. They exhibit 
the history of an eventful era, mirrored, as it were, upon a 
reflective and ardent soul ; they illustrate how the spirit of reform 
wrestles with the mind of an intelligent conservative ; and they 
afford the most impressive glimpses of nature, literature, revolu- 
tions, and society, as they appear to the consciousness of a man 
of sentiment and philosophy, thoroughly exposed to their agency, 
and yet capable of tranquil observation. Strongly attached to the 
ideas of the past, — religious, political, and domestic, — on account 
of his education and instincts, he was borne along the tide of those 
vital changes that mark the last century, at once their victim and 
expositor, — now inspired and now persecuted by the course of 
events, and yet always preserving intact the noble individuality 
of bis character. 

It is this which makes us the willing auditors of his story, and 
which, in spite of the constant egotism and occasional extrava- 
gance of his autobiography, wins our warmest attention and fre- 
quent sympathy. The hardihood with which he accepts the 
conditions of a destiny alternating between the greatest extremes 
of misfortune and prosperity ; the zeal that sustains his pilgrim- 
age in the trackless forests of the West and the arid desert of the 
East ; over seas and mountains, through unknown crowds of his 
fellow-beings, and in the lonely struggles of bereaved affection, 
lend a Avarmth to every page of his narrative: and amid the 
13 • 



14G THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

varying panoruina through -which he conducts us, not for a mo- 
ment are Ave unconscious of the Breton, the royalist, and the poet 
of the old rijiine. It is this combination of intense personal 
identity Avith the most changeful scenes and fortunes that gives 
its peculiar* 'charm to the life of Chateaubriand. Other travellers 
have as well described America and the Holy Land, Napoleon 
and the Alhambra ; we have pictures of the French Revolution 
more elaborate than his ; the trials and the triumphs of the man 
of letters have been equally well chronicled, and the war of opin- 
ion as eloquently reported; but these, and the countless other 
phases of Chateaubriand's experience, are lighted up in his record 
by the fire of imagination, outlined, with Avonderful distinctness, 
by strong feeling, and often exquisitely softened by the atmos- 
phere of sentiment. Sketches w^hich impress us with the intensely 
picturesque effect of Dante are interspersed with speculative gos- 
sip that would do credit to old Montaigne, and the author and 
lover seem to change paints with the adventurer and the states- 
man, as we find the experiences of each detailed w^ith equal com- 
placency ; yet through and around them all the original man is 
apparent — his melancholy reveries, his poetic ecstasies, his pro- 
found sensibility to nature, his love of glory, his devotion to the 
past, his vast anticipations, his philosophic observation, keen sense 
of honor, patriotism, and independent yet loving spirit. Nothing 
can be more manly than his enterprises, his endurance, and his 
industry, and nothing more childlike than his account of them. 
We ape often inclined to forget the offensiveness of vanity, as we 
read, in the fruits of its unconscious revelations : we cannot but 
perceive that it is the vividness of his ow^n impressions and the 
importance he attaches to them that render Chateaubriand so 
effective an author: and intolerable as would be commonplace 
events thus unfolded, those of universal interest, which chiefly 
occupy his memoirs, derive from this cause an infinite attraction. 
Far more real appear the historic scenes reviewed, when thus 
linked with the thoughts and feelings of such a man, and the 
whole process of his authorship is ingeniously displayed by so 
minute a history of his life ; indeed, the one is but the exponent 
of the other ; his books are the genuine offspring of his experience, 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 147 

and his biography not the life of one man, but an episodical 
history of the times. 

The most careful limning in this remarkable picture is that of 
the early scenes. Like all reminiscences, those of his childhood 
are the clearest, and the original elements of his character there 
defined give us the key to much of his subsequent history. Fol- 
lowing him from St. Malo through the most exciting and di^amatic 
incidents, and amid every variety of climate and condition, the 
image of the isolated, thoughtful, and baffled youth rises continu- 
ally to our fancy, and explains every trait of the man. The sea, 
the turret, the woods, the paternal austerity, the sisters' love, the 
mother's piety, the suicidal purpose, the ideal attachment, the 
rude manners, and heart trembling with sensibility, — all this 
half-Crabbe-like and half-Shakspearian picture of a young pro- 
vincial noble^s existence in Brittany just before the Revolution, 
haunts the memory of the reader with its sad yet truthful linea- 
ments. It also gives him the clue to Chateaubriand's solemnity 
of mind and loyalty of purpose. In the solitude and secret con- 
flicts- of his boyhood originated the strength of m;nd, the want of 
external adaptation, and the poetical habit of his nature. It drew 
him into intimacy with the outward universe and his own soul, 
and laid the foundation of the contemplative spirit that accompa- 
nied him in a career of almost incessant activity ; thus inducing a 
kind of Hamlet or Jacques like idiosyncrasy, that, Avhen deepened 
by exile, poverty, and baffled sentiment, gave the element of 
pathos which distinguishes the most effective of his writings, and 
is the key-note of his memoirs. 

The life of Chateaubriand, thus minutely related, and made 
alive and dramatic by the fidelity and emotion w^ith which it is 
portrayed, naturally arranges itself into scenes, each of which 
illustrates an entire act. Thus, from the chateau-life of his child- 
hood, we follow him to college, and thence to Paris, and stand 
beside him at the window where his heart sickened as the heads 
of the first victims of the Revolution were borne along on pikes ; 
then behold him seated by an Indian camp-fire, within hearing 
of the Falls of Niagara ; a few months elapse, and he is discovered 
sauntering in Kensington Gardens, meditating a work of genius, 
or sharing his last crust with a brother exile in a London garret ; 



148 THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

within a year the teacher of an English country maiden in a dis- 
tant parish ; shortly afterwards the secretary of Cardinal Fesch, 
at Rome ; then a pilgrim to Jerusalem, animated by the old cru- 
sader spirit ; previously a soldier in the French army besieging 
Thironville, or begging, wounded, at a fisherman's hut; again, 
in retirement at the ValUe aux Loups^ planting or writing; 
now fraternizing with the Parisian litUrateurs of a past genera- 
tion, now braving Napoleon in an inaugural discourse before the 
French Institute, and now feting the English nobility as ambas- 
sador to the Court of St. James ; waging political battles in Paris, 
assisting at the Congress of Verona, or talking regretfully of the 
past, in his latter days, at Madame Recamier's soiries. The life 
of the province, the university, the capital — the voyageur, the 
soldier, the author, the diplomat^ the journalist, the exile, the 
man of society, the man of state, and the man of sentiment — 
all were known to their full significance in his adventurous career. 
Stern as were the realities of his lot, a vein of absolute romance 
is visible throughout; continually an episode occurs which the 
writer of fiction would seize with avidity and elaborate with effect. 
Imagine the use to which might be thus adapted such incidents 
as the night he was an involuntary prisoner in Westminster 
Abbey, the circumstances of his emigration, and his departure 
from the army of the princes ; his encounter with a French danc- 
ing-master among the Iroquois, his manage de convenance^ and 
his subsequent love-adventure in England ; his brilliant dihut as 
an author, his shipwreck on returning from America, his vigil at 
the death-bed of Madame Beaumont, and his walk out of Brus- 
sels while listening to the cannons of Waterloo ! The breath of 
every clime, the discipline of all vocations, the fiercest controver- 
sies, and the most abstract reveries, associations of the highest 
kind, and events of the most universal import ; fame and obscu- 
rity, riches and poverty, devoted friendship and pitiable isolation, 
contact with the past through keen sympathy and intense im- 
agination, identity with the present through indefatigable activity ; 
made up the existence of Chateaubriand, whi«h was the successive 
realization of all that constitutes the life of the mind, of the 
heart, and of the age itself. 

His social experience was quite as varied, interesting, and his- 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 149 

torical, as the events of which he was a witness or an agent. Of 
the most illustrious of his acquaintance and intimate of his friends 
he has left excellent portraits, and highly characteristic personal 
anecdotes. Indeed, the manner in which descriptions of nature 
and adventurous incident are blended, in his memoirs, with those 
of renowned or attractive individuals, make them resemble a long 
picture-gallery, where the features of the great and loved beam 
from the wall amid beautiful or wild landscapes, domestic groups, 
and memorable scenes from history. Beginning with the mem- 
bers of his own family, he delineates the persons, traits of charac- 
ter, and manner, of Moreau and Mirabeau, Laharpe and his literary 
coterie, Napoleon and Washington. Canning, Neckar, Talleyrand, 
the Duchess de Berri, Charles X., Lafayette, the French emi- 
grants in London, the aborigines in America, his Irish hostess, 
with her passion for cats, at Hempstead. Charlotte, his beloved 
English pupil, Madame Bacciocchi, Madame de Coulin, Madame 
Dudevant, — in a word, all his political, literary, and personal 
acquaintances. The distinct outline and graceful coloring of 
these portraits bespeak the artist ; but we owe the effective style 
in which they are conceived to the relation in which the limner 
stood to the originals ; the heat-lightning of his love or indigna- 
tion often gives us "veritable glimpses more impressive than a 
detailed but less vivid revelation could yield ; thus his two inter- 
views with Bonaparte and Washington, the manner in which 
Malesherbes infected him with that enthusiasm of discovery which 
sent him across the ocean in search of a north-west passage, and 
Madame de StaePs favorite appellation, " My dear Francis," 
bring each individual directly before us. Byron was a school- 
boy at Harrow when Chateaubriand, the impoverished exile, caught 
sight of his curly head as he wandered by the seminary in his 
peregrinations round London; and De Tocqueville, the able 
expositor of our institutions, he knew as the intelligent child of a 
friend at whose country-house he visited. Compare the hunting 
party of Louis XIV., which he attended as a young noble of the 
realm, with the morning call upon Washington at Philadelphia, 
and we have the last glimmer of feudal royalty in the Old World, 
with the first dawn of republican simplicity in the New. 

The business-like manner in which his marriage was contracted 
13=^ 



150 THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

is in violent contrast with the romantic earnestness of his remi- 
niscences of sentiment ; and his veneration for the ties of family 
and rank strangely combined with a zest for the primitive in 
human nature. The instinct of glory led him to cherish enthu- 
siasm for greatness, that of blood for" races, and that of poetry for 
the original, the fresh, and the intrepid. Hence, he sympathized 
with genius, of whatever clime — with exiled princes and Indian 
chiefs ; and, while wisdom, tenderness, and valor, so attached him 
that he dwells almost passionately upon those eras marked by 
satisfactory intercourse with • others, ever and anon misfortune, 
pride, and a sense of the unattained. draw him back to self and 
the glow of companionship, and love fades into the •' pale cast of 
thought.'" He survived the most renowned of his contemporaries 
and the most endeared of his friends. Yet few men have been 
more sincerely loved than Chateaubriand, and few have mingled 
intimately with the intellectual leaders of any epoch, and won a 
greater share of admiration with less compromise of self-respect ; 
for he was quite as remarkable for the independence of his char- 
acter as for the strength of his attachments. 

One of his most pleasing traits was an ardent love of nature. 
To gratify this on a broad scale, he cheerfully undertook long 
and hazardous voyages, and delighted to expose his whole being 
to the influence of earth, sea, and firmament, with the abandon 
of the poet and the observant spirit of the philosopher. His sen- 
sibility in this regard is evident in the force and beauty of his 
impressions. His mind caught and reproduced the inspiration of 
the universe, and his affections linked themselves readily with 
objects hallowed by association. Thus he speaks of Madame de 
Beaumont's cypress, the poplar beside his window in the rue de 
Mirousel, the nightingales at the restaurant he frequented, and the 
doves whose brooding note accompanied his studies, with a degree 
of feehng rarely coexistent with such rude experience of the world. 
" Je me sentais," he says, " vivre et vegeter avec la nature dans 
une espece de pantheisme." He possessed the genuine instinct 
of travel, and the migratory impulse of birds. It is remarkable 
that a disposition like this, characteristic of the naturahst and 
poet, should be so developed in a man whose name is identified 
with a long political career. The conventionalities of life, how- 



, CHATEAUBRIAND. 151 

ever, and '' tracas series politiques^''' were ungenial to him. He 
describes the two sides of his character very justly when he sajs : 
'' Dans I'existence interieure et theorique. je suis Thomme de 
tous les songes : dans 1" existence exterieure et pratique Thomme 
des realites. Aventureux et ordonne, passionne et methodique." 
He was indeed a poetical cosmopolite — one of the most perfect 
examples of tha.t style of character known to modern times. In 
his candid self-revelations, the primeval instincts of the natural, 
and the complex relations of the civilized human being are suc- 
cessively brought into view ; for the rapture with which he first 
greets the virgin forest of the New World is soon followed by an 
instant resolution to join the army of his king, of whose flight he 
was informed by an old newspaper, accidentally picked up in the 
cabin of a backwoodsman ; and if, as we accompany his musing 
steps along the banks of the Jordan, it seems as if one of the 
heroes of Tas3o"s epic had revived in the person of ^ French pala- 
din, the associations of a later and less chivalric era are soon 
excited by the proces verbal that condemned his brother to the 
guillotine — printed in another page of his memoirs as a sad but 
authentic link in his fa'mily history. Listen to him as he thinks 
aloud in the Colosseum at moonlight, and you would infer that 
he was a bard unallied to the realities of the present — a dreamer 
whose life was in the past ; but the idea is dispelled, almost when 
conceived, by an enthusiastic description that succeeds of one of 
those Parisian riunions or political climaxes in which he took so 
active a share. 

His reminiscences of travel have a sweetness and vitality, like 
the dexterously preserved flowers of an herbal, as if he transmitted 
us the very hues and sensations of the regions he traversed with 
so keen a sympathy — the marine odor and crumbling architecture 
of Venice, the religious atmosphere of Rome, the fresh verdure 
and exuberant nature of the western hemisphere, the Petrarchan 
charms of southern France, the Moorish tints of Spain, the sub- 
stantial glory of England, the grandeur of mountains relieved 
against the transparent and frosty air of Switzerland, the extremes 
of metropolitan and the simple graces of rural life — these, and 
all other sensitive and moral experiences of the traveller, Cha- 
teaubriand, as it were, imbibed as the aliment of his mind, and 



152 THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

reproduced as memorials of his life. Like Byron, he became 
part of what he loved ; and the intensity of his own consciousness 
rendered nature, art, and society, or rather their traits and essen- 
tial spirit, his own. In the aboriginal wigwam and the Arabian 
tent ; at Memphis, Carthage, and Jerusalem ; at Golgotha and 
Hempstead, Granada and Rome ; at the banquet of the monarch, 
on the sick-bed of the hospital, in the prison and the boudoir ; 
when dragged triumphantly in his carriage by the applauding 
law-students from the Bibliotheque Genevieve to his domicile, 
and when left, propped against a wall, a wounded fugitive in 
Guernsey — he rose above the material and the temporary, caught 
the true significance, bravely met the exigency, and felt the ideal 
as well as the human interest of the scene and occasion. 

It is this spirit of humanity, this poetical tone of mind — the 
lofty thought, the genuine feeling, in short, w ith which he encoun- 
tered vicissitudes and contemplated beauty, and not the mere out- 
w^ard facts of his career — that gives a permanent and ineffable 
charm to his name. A halo of sentiment encircles his brow, not 
less evident when bowed in adversity than when crowned with 
honor. He demonstrates the truth of the brave old poet's creed, 
that the mind of man is his true kingdom. His self-respect never 
falters amid the most discouraging circumstances ; he redeems 
misfortune of its worst anguish by the strength of his love or his 
religion. The scope of his view wins him from the limited and 
the personal ; the ardor of his emotions compensates for the cold- 
ness of fortune ; he is ever aware of the vast privilege of the 
rational being to look before and after ; memories either glorious 
or tender, and visions of faith, shed a consoling light both upon 
the clouds of outward sorrow and inward melancholy ; always a 
poet, a philosopher, a lover, and a Christian, Chateaubriand the 
man is " nobler than his mood," however sad, baffled, or absorbed, 
it may be. This dignity, this sense of the lofty, the comprehen- 
sive, and the beautiful, seldom deserts him. It gives tone, ele- 
vation, spirit, and interest, to each phase of his life, and makes its 
record poetic and suggestive. 

The political career of Chateaubriand has been the subject of 
that diversity of opinion w^hich seems inevitably to attend this 
portion of all illustrious lives. A rigid, narrow course in regard 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 153 

to party, it would be ii'rational to expect and illiberal to desire 
in a man of such broad insight and generous instincts. His im- 
aginative tendency and chivalric tone also unfitted him to be either 
consistently subservient to a dogma or invariably true to a faction. 
The nobility and sentiment of the man, however, shed their light 
upon the politician. The character and spirit of his statesmanship, 
though at times too ideal in theory, were individual, and often 
indicative of the highest moral courage. He broke away from 
the life of a court, in his youth, with the intrepidity of the most 
zealous republican ; when Mii'abeau clapped him fondly on the 
shoulder, he thought his hand the claw of Satan ; and while he 
sought, in voluntary exile, immunity from the horrors of the 
Revolution, he was loyal to his order when the time came to resist 
the fanaticism of the Jacobins — fought in its ranks, and shared 
the privations of emigration. It has been well said that he was 
" a monarchist from conviction, a Bourbonist from honor, and a 
republican by nature;'*' " le republicaine le plus devoue a la 
monarchic; " and, incompatible as such principles may seem with 
each other, he suffered and toiled in behalf of all of them. He 
solicited a mission of discovery at the age of twenty to escape 
from the ungenial social and political atmosphere of France, as 
well as to gratify an adventurous taste. He dedicated his great 
work to the Eirst Consul, and accepted from him the embassy to 
Rome, with a sincere faith in his patriotism ; and bravely dared 
his anger, by instantly resigning another office the moment he 
heard of the Duke d'Enghien's execution. It was his boast that 
only after the ''success of his ideas" was he dismissed from the 
political arena. In 1830 he stood alone among the peers, and 
urged them to protest in favor of the banished king ; and yet, for 
the sake of tranquillity, acceded to the request of his opponents 
not to utter his intended speech against the new government. 
He also declined their offer of a portfolio, saying: "I only 
demand liberty of conscience, and the right to go and die where- 
eVer I can find freedom and repose." Thus, while Chateaubriand 
failed entirely to please both parties, he was yet eminently true 
to himself, and won respect from each. He declared of Bona- 
parte : '-11 etait anime centre moi de toute sa forfaiture, comme 
je Tetais contre lui de toute ma loyaute." The episode of the 



151 THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

Breton against the Corsican is one of the most characteristic in 
the history of both. It is conceded that he always, sacrificed 
personal interest to his idea of public good : and if he sent a 
French armj^ to crush liberty in Spain, he has. theoretically at 
least, vindicated his motives. His constant purpose was to give 
the people a system of graduated monarchy, in which he firmly 
believed their true welfare to consist, and, at the same time, to 
reassert the dignity of France. He was the invariable and 
eloquent advocate of the liberty of the press and of religion. 

The most inveterate advocates of reform, if endowed with just 
moral perception and even an inkling of chivalric sentiment, can 
hardly fail to respect the devotion of Chateaubriand to that sys- 
tem which, despite its inhuman abuses, lends the highest" dignity 
and value to the past. He clung with the almost absolute loyalty 
of the middle ages to those persons and usages amid which he 
was born, and in fidelity to which he thought consisted his 
honor. He sacrificed wealth, home, safety, — everything but 
character, — to principles outgrown by the world, but endeared to 
faith. Some one has said that independence is the essential test 
of a gentleman. Chateaubriand, thus judged, was not only a gen- 
tleman in the absolute sense of the term, but a knio:ht accordino; 
to the original standard. Loyalty was in him an immutable 
instinct, and one that redeems all the apparent perversities of 
opinion traceable in his career as a man of the state. He has 
been said to be the legitimate inheritor of that eclectic political 
feeling, attached at once to both past and future, to the people 
and the throne, of w^hich Lafayette was the exemplar. From 
1814 to 1825 he contended for the past ; from then until 1830 he 
was the advocate of progress, and thenceforward strove to recon- 
cile the interests of both. Such is the enlightened view taken by 
the liberal critic. During the Hundred Days he was one of the 
king's counsellors at Ghent. The anti-regicide doctrine of his 
first speech to the Institute forever disunited him from Napoleon, 
and he retired from public life on the accession of Louis Philippe. 
Deprived of a lucrative editorship, exiled, his property forfeited, 
he again and again evidenced his superiority to corruption, and 
sought refuge in nature and letters from the vicissitudes of public 
life. Ambassador at Berlin, Rome, and London. — ministerj 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 155 

soldier, and journalist, — in the congress of nations, the cabinet, 
and the popular assembly, — however visionary, impulsive, and per- 
tinacious, Chateaubriand nobly vindicated his title to the name of 
patriot. A citizen of the vrorld by virtue of enlarged sympathies 
and intelligence, he was always a Frenchman at heart, and one of 
that school, now almost wholly traditional, about which lingers the 
venerable charm of a loyal, brave, courteous, and gallant race — 
touched, however, in him, to finer issues by an innate love of the 
grand, a natural ideality and depth of feeling, partly inherited, 
and somewhat owing to his Breton origin and remarkable experi- 
ence. In a word, he was both a poet and a true scion of the old 
French aristocracy, which seems to have expired when the hearse 
containing his remains, followed by a single carriage, in which 
were his executor and valet, reached the shores of Brittany one 
summer day in 1849, and a veiled woman in deep mourning drew 
near and laid a bunch of flowers on the coffin, saying, tearfully, 
" This is all I have to offer." 

The authorship, like the existence, of Chateaubriand, waschiv- 
alric, adventurous, and effective, usually originating in some want 
or impulse of the time, derived from his own experience or aimed 
at a positive and practical result ; the man of action and of the 
age, the improvisator of the occasion, marks his labors in the field 
of letters. Thus, his first essay as a writer on a large scale was 
the Treatise on Revolutions, written in exile and for bread, and 
serving as a kind of initiative discipline to works of more instant 
and universal effect : yet even this, the most abstract and least 
spontaneous of his works, chiefly historical in its plan, being 
written at the epoch of the French Revolution, in which the 
author and his family so deeply suffered, had a vital and imme- 
diate significance. The subject thus chosen indicates his dominant 
taste for philosophy, history, and politics ; in its execution, also, 
is evident his love of bringing ancient parallels to bear on con- 
temporary events ; the broad survey of governments it includes 
shows his comprehensive scope of mind, the instinctive grandeur 
of his conception ; while some of the portraits and scenes betray 
that felicity of description which characterized his subsequent 
writings. However respectable as a literary undertaking, the 
Essais sur les Revolutions was rather a prophetic than realized 



156 THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

test of his mission as a writer. The Genie du Christianisme 
is one of those works that, by meeting the conscious needs of 
an age and people, lift the author at once to the rank of public 
benefactor. When Europe recoiled from the barren and bitter 
fruits of anarchy and atheism, and humanity became conscious 
of her desolation, '• without God in the world," this reassertion 
of the religious sentiment, of the incalculable benefits Chris- 
tianity had bestowed upon the world, of its infinite superiority to 
all previous systems, of its accordance with nature and the heart 
of man, of its sacred relation to domestic life and to the human 
passions, seemed an echo of the latent hopes and recollections of 
every bereaved and aspiring soul amid the wrecks of social and 
civil life. With singular eloquence, Chateaubriand resummoned 
the saints, the angels, the myths, the ceremonial, and the sanc- 
tions of the Christian religion, from the eclipse they had under- 
gone. He compared, as only a scholar, a philosopher, a poet, can 
do, Hell with Tartarus, Heaven with Elysium ; Homer, Virgil, 
and Theocritus, with Dante, Milton, and Tasso ; the Sibyls and 
the Evangelists, the Bible and the Iliad. He recounted the tri- 
umphs of Christian art, and described how the New Testament 
changed the genius of the painter : " Sans lui, rien oter de sa 
sublimite, il lui donne plus de tendresse." He revealed its archi- 
tectural signs — the dome and spire : " Les yeux du voyageur 
viennent d'abord s'attacher sur cette fleche religieuse dont I'aspect 
reveilee une foule de sentiments et de souvenirs ; c'est la pyra- 
mide funebre autour de la quelle dorment les aieux ; c'est la 
monument de joie ou I'airain sacre annonce le vie du fidele ; c'est 
la que Tepoux s'unisant; c'est la que les chretiens se prosterent 
au pied des autels, le foible pour prier le Dieu deforce, le coupable 
pour implorer le Dieu de misericorde, I'innocent pour chanter le 
Dieu de bonte." He pictures to the imagination the tangible 
evidences of his holy faith, Raphael's Madonnas and the Hotel 
Dieu, the Festival, the Cemetery, the Sisters of Charity, the 
Knight, the Missionary, the eloquence of Massillon, Bossuet, 
Pascal, and Eenelon. Thus, gathering up the trophies and 
opening the vistas of Christianity once more before the despair- 
ing eyes of multitudes, Chateaubriand was hailed by tearful 
praises. " Imagine," says one of his critics, '' a vase of myrrh 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 157 

overturned on the steps of a blood-stained altar." To us and 
to-daj the significance of his work is greatly modified and abated. 
In the light of a more advanced civilization, and a race of no less 
eloquent and deeper expositors, we look upon it, with Lamartine, 
rather as a reliquary than as a creative work. It is a panoramic 
view of the history of Christianity — a poem celebrating its 
dogmas and monuments, and '-'superstition's rod " seems to hang 
over the inspired defender of the Church. None the less beau- 
tiful, however, are many of its appeals to the past and to the 
human heart — none the less remarkable its success. He tells us 
it was undertaken not only from devout, but filial sentiment ; his 
conversion having been induced by his mother's death, and grief 
for his scepticism. Over the book, therefore, hangs an atmos- 
phere of poetical and adventurous interest, which lends it perma- 
nent attraction. 

The Etudes Historiqiies were commenced and finished, as the 
author says, with a restoration ; and he adds : '' Le plus long et 
le dernier travail de ma vie, celui qui m'a coute le plus de recher- 
ches, de soins et d'annees, celui ou j'ai peut-etre remue le plus 
d'idees et de faits, paroit lorsqu'il ne pent trouver de lecteurs." 
This want of comparative success is easily accounted for by the 
absence of personal motive and interest in this elaborate, instruct- 
ive, sometimes eloquent and characteristic work. The Itin- 
ira'ire^ Voyage en Ameriqiie^ and, in &ct, all his books of travel, 
while they contain charming passages, are now more interesting 
as links in his career than for their facts and descriptions — there 
having been no department of recent literature more affluent in 
graces of style and attraction of details than that of voyages and 
travels. In the East and our own country, he is, therefore, in a 
great measure, superseded by later and standard writers. His 
literary and political miscellanies are often rich in thought and 
imagery. The opinions they embrace are, however, frequently 
inconsistent ; but there is a harmony of tone, a vigor of argu- 
ment, a keen critical appreciation, and a gift of expression, which 
indicate genius, amid much that is desultory, extravagant, and 
incomplete. The prejudices of the Roman Catholic, and the 
ignorance of the foreigner, sometimes rudely clash with the beau- 
ful style of the rhetorician, and the lofty sentiment of the bard. 
14 



158 THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

Amid the voluminous disquisition, the journals of travel, and the 
polemics of Chateaubriand, three gems of narrative — episodes 
and illustrations, in a truly poetic vein, of his arguments and 
descriptions — have served to wing his name abroad, and cause it 
to nestle in many hearts. These are Atala^ Rene, and Les Aveii- 
tiires du Dernier Abencerrage ; romantic in conception and most 
gracefully executed — prose poems, in short, and the flowers of 
his mind, terse, beautiful, and embalmed in sentiment, although 
to the unnatural passion described in the former work some crit- 
ics attribute the exceptionable moral taste in modern French 
romance. In contrast with these is the most vigorous and the 
least charitable of his political essays, "Bonaparte and the 
Bourbons," which Lamartine well describes as " the bitter 
speech of the public executioner of humanity and liberty, writ- 
ten by the hand of the Furies against the great culprit of the 

age." . • . . 

The passionate invective of this famous pamphlet would strike 
the reader differently could he imagine it addressed to the French 
people before the star of the conqueror began to wane ; but it is 
associated with the image of Napoleon, not in the hour of his 
triumph, but as he sits at Fontainebleau, brooding in dishevelled 
garments, and with despau' on his brow, over the defection of his 
household and the pitiless demands of the allies. 

Wide, indeed, is the range of Chateaubriand's literary talent 
and achievement, and versatile as his fortunes : in politics singu- 
larly bold, almost ferocious ; in history suggestive and ingenious ; 
and in personal revelations often pathetic, picturesque, and some- 
times vain, yet ever graphic. He knew the fever of mind inci- 
dent to poetical conception — the long, patient vigil of the scholar, 
and the serene, contemplative mood of the philosopher. He expe- 
rienced climaxes both of emotion and opinion, and vented both on 
paper. And with all the assiduity, the invention, and the glow, 
of these compositions, he had also the melo-dramatic, the exag- 
gerated, and the artificial taste of a Frenchman. He loved effect, 
— he was carried away by the desire of glory, tenacious of indi- 
viduality, and happy in a kind of wayward yet noble self-asser- 
tion. Such a writer is naturally open to critical assault, and fitted 
to excite admiration in equal degrees. Accordingly, his incon- 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 159 

gruities as a champion of religion have been often designated by 
writers of more chastened taste ; the hardihood and inconsistencies 
of his partisan articles justly condemned, and the effects of a too 
sensitive mind easily detected. As an instance of his want of 
spontaneous expression, and the habitude of well-considered lan- 
guage, Lamartine relates, in his History of the Restoration, that 
when sent as a deputy to the Emperor Alexander to plead the 
Bourbon cause, Chateaubriand was silent because he could not, 
on the spur* of the moment, as he afterwards declared, find lan- 
guage appropriate to the majesty of the occasion. He required 
time to utter himself in writing ; and therefore, on this memorable 
occasion, allowed a younger and far less gifted member of the 
deputation to vSpeak for him. 

His style, too, has been censured for its grandiose tendency, 
and his authorship made the object of extreme laudation and scorn. 
What almost invariably claims our admiration, however, is the 
gallant and the comprehensive, the poetical and the sympathetic 
spirit in which he has written. Somewhat of the extravagance 
of his nation is indeed conspicuous ; but we are impelled to view 
it leniently on account of the grace and bravery with which it is 
usually combined. He opened glorious vistas, and let fall seeds 
of eternal truth. The sound of the sea, the setting of the sun, 
the roaring of the wind amid the pines, the fall of the leaf, the 
associations of home and country, the solemnity of ruins, the 
griefs of humanity, the vicissitudes of life, the sanctions of reli- 
gion, tenderness, heroism, reverence, faith. — all, in short, that 
hallows and sublimates this brief existence, and sheds a mystic 
glory over the path of empires, the scene of nature, and the lot 
.of man, found eloquent recognition from his pen ; and for such 
ministrations we give him love and honor, without losing sight of 
the vagueness, the prejudice, the artificiality, and the exaggeration, 
which occasionally mar such exuberant development. In him the 
conscious and personal sometimes dwarfs the essentially noble ; 
but a kind of grandeur of feeling and thought often lifts him 
above the temporary. He cherished faith in his race : "Si 
I'homme," he says, '' est ingrat, I'humanite est reconnaissante." 
'•'The masters of thought," he declares, "open horizons, invent 
words, have heirs and lineages." For a Gallic nature, his appre- 



160 THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

ciation of Milton, Dante, Tasso — of the serious phase of great- 
ness — was remarkable, although some of his criticisms on English 
literature excite a smile. In his influence as a man of letters, for 
half a century he was the successful antagonist of Voltaire and 
his school. Often he gave impetus and embodiment to public 
opinion ; and if his portraits are sometimes fanciful and his judg- 
ments poetic, his literary achievements, on the whole, had a rare 
character of adventure and beauty ; and the alternations from 
severe reasoning to imaginative glow are such as indicate a mar- 
vellous combination of intellectual power. For the complete 
revised edition of his works he received five hundred and fifty 
thousand francs ; and perhaps no modern author boasts more 
remarkable trophies — such a blending of tinsel and truth — of 
the incongruous but efficient politician with the ardent, sensitive, 
heroic poet — incomplete and desultory in certain respects, fresh, 
courageous, true, eloquent, and original, in others ; imprudent, but 
loyal; "worth an army to the Bourbons," yet enamored of 
American solitudes ; as a journalist, said to unite "la hauteur de 
Bossuet et la profondeur de Montesquieu ; " advising literary 
aspirants of his race and tongue not to try verse, and, if they have 
the poetical instinct, to eschew politics ; carrying the war into 
Napoleon's retreating dominion, and, at the same time, hailed 
as the dove of the Deluge, whose mission it was "to renew 
the faith of the heart, and infuse the impoverished veins of the 
social body with generous sentiment." Enough of fame and of 
weakness we may, indeed, find in all this to crown a writer with 
admiration and pity. If his genius was somewhat too studied, 
it lent dignity to his times and country ; if his youth was 
shackled by the pedantic coterie that ruled French letters, his* 
maturity redeemed, by the independent advocacy of truth and 
nature, the casual vassalage ; if he once over-estimated Ossian, 
he never lost sight of the need of clear expression, and repu- 
diated, when engaged on practical subjects, the vague conceptions 
he admired. 

Chateaubriand's genius thus responded to national subjects, and 
was modified by national imperfections — in his poetical sentiment 
reminding us of St. Pierre, Rousseau, and Lamartine; while 
many passages in the Martyrs, Natchez, the magazines, letters. 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 161 

romanceSj in the answers to his critics, and historical essays, chal- 
lenge recognition for the philosopher ; and yet, ever and anon, 
the manner in which he dwells upon his achievements, and the 
consideration he demands both from the reader and governments 
for his persecutions and his fame, cause us somewhat painfully to 
realize the weakness of the man. In this anti-Saxon and thor- 
oughly Gallic egotism, sensitiveness, vanity, or by whatever name 
we^ designate a quality so obvious and characteristic, Chateau- 
briand was a genuine Frenchman. He describes this trait of 
his nation justly when accounting for the fruitfulness of its 
literature in memoirs and the comparative dearth of history : 
— "Le Francois a ete tous les temps, meme lorsqu'il etoit bar- 
bare, vain, leger et sociable. II reflechit peu sur I'ensemble 
des objets ; mais il observe curieusement les details, et son coup 
d'oeil est prompt, sur et delie ; il faut toujours qu'il soit en 
scene. II aime a dire; j'etois la, le roi me dit; J'appu du 
prince," etc. 

From the casual frailties, however, and from the intrigues of 
the salon^ the warfare of party, and the reverses of fortune — from 
all that is unworthy and mutable in this remarkable life, what is 
pure and eifective in genius seems to rise and separate itself to 
the imagination, and we behold the true spirit of the man em- 
bodied and embalmed in the disinterested results of his thought 
and the spontaneous utterance of his sentiment ; and therefore it 
is as a poet of the old regime that we finally regard Chateau- 
briand. 

It has been acutely said that external life is an appendix to the 
heart ; and the Memoirs d^ outre Tombe signally evidence the 
truth. Dated, as they are, at long intervals of time, and in many 
different places, the immediate circumstances under which they 
are written are often brought into view simultaneously with a 
vivid retrospect, to which they form a singular contrast ; and this 
gives an air of reality to the whole, such as is afforded by oral 
communication ; we frequently seem to listen instead of reading. 
Chateaubriand first thought of composing the work where Gribbon 
conceived the idea of his great enterprise, in that haunt of eternal 
memories — Rome. It was commenced in his rural seclusion at 
La Vallee aux Loups, near Aulnay, in the autumn of 1811, and 
14* 



162 THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME. 

finally revised at Paris, in 1841. The intermediate period is 
strictly chronicled, and interspersed with details of the antecedent 
and the passing moment, together with countless portraits, criti- 
cisms, and scenes, both analytical and descriptive ; but the deep 
vein of sentiment, which prompts the author's movements and 
arrays his experience and thoughts, continually reminds us that 
the life depicted is but the appendix to the heart that inspires. 
Thus his intimacy with Malesherbes, whose granddaughter his 
elder brother married, fostered that passion for exploration which 
made him a traveller ; his repugnance to priestly shackles induced 
him to enroll his name in the regiment of Navarre ; his adherence 
to his party made him a translator and master of languages in 
England ; his fraternal love redeemed his boyhood from misan- 
thropic despair, and his religious and poetic sentiment impelled 
him to the East. This oriental tendency — if we may so call it 
— is evident, as he suggests, in the whole race of modern genius. 
and seems to spring both from delicate organization, giving a 
peculiar charm to the atmosphere and life of that region, and from 
historical associations that win the imagination and the sympa- 
thies — romantically evident in Byron, and religiously in Cha- 
teaubriand and Lamartine. The former, despite the battles, 
conclaves, and literary affairs, that make up the substance of his 
memoirs, never loses his identity with sentiment, whether luxuri- 
ating in the scenery of the Grand Charteuse, invoking the departed 
at Holyrood or Venice, setting out the trees of every land he had 
visited on his domain, breaking away from his English love with 
the exclamation, ^^ Je suis mari!^^ or recording his last inter- 
view with his sister Lucille and her obscure burial; claiming 
his chair at Corinne's fireside, or discovering auguries in the 
fierce tempest that broke over St. Malo the night he was born. 
The most utilitarian reader must confess, as he connects the 
practical efficiency and noble traits of Chateaubriand with his 
generous emotions, that sentiment is a grand conservative and 
productive element in human life, and to its inciting and elevated 
influence justly ascribe the usefulness, the renown, and the sin- 
gular interest, that attaches to the man he may have seen a few 
years since threading the Boulevards of Paris with "irreproach- 
able cravat and ebony cane;" recognizing in his gentle yet 



CHATEAUBRIAND. 163 

vigorous expression, in his broad forehead and projecting tem- 
ples, the thick white hair around his bald crown, the inclination 
of the head, the long face and observant yet noble air, outward 
indications of his varied experience, rare gifts, and unique char- 
acter. ' 



THE REVIEWER 

FRANCIS JEFFREY. 



Oj^E cool morning, during our last war with England, a group 
of Knickerbocker savans might have been seen on the Battery, 
eagerly watching the approach of a vessel. On her deck, at the 
same moment, the inspection of a passenger's baggage was going 
on, under the eye of a vigilant officer of the customs, whose 
herculean proportions and deliberate air Avere in amusing contrast 
with the brisk movements and diminutive figure of the indignant 
owner of the trunks and boxes thus overhauled and scrutinized. 
At last, swelling with indignation, the little man turned to his 
burly tormentor, with the question — a la Caesar — ''Sir! do 
you know who I am ? " 

"Yes," replied the officer, "you are the editor of a Scotch 
magazine ; " and immediately continued his examination, as if 
determined to prove the querist a smuggler. 

Quite different were the manners of the expectant group at the 
pier, when the irritated gentleman stepped upon shore. Their 
deferential greeting and urgent hospitality soon put him in better 
humor, without, however, diminishing the self-complacency of his 
bearing. The scene perfectly illustrated a singular characteristic 
of the times — the ascendency gained over public opinion by the 
press, and the newly- established power of criticism. 

The gentleman, whose arrival in the United States was thus 
signalized, was Francis Jeffrey, who, having contracted an engage- 
ment of marriage with an' American lady whom he met abroad. 



FRANCIS JEFFREY. 165 

had come over, under the protection of a cartel specially granted 
for the purpose, in a government ship, to marry the woman of his 
choice. The practical independence and good sense of the scion 
of democracy who examined his baggage rebelled at a certain 
vague idea he had somewhere acquired, that the wise men of 
his native city pinned their faith upon a foreign periodical ; and, 
sharing in the animosity then cherished against Great Britain, he 
was far from pleased at the demonstration of respect to the Scotch 
editor manifested in the vessel that brought and the reception 
that awaited him : while the learned coterie, who eagerly seized 
upon the stranger, beheld in him the incarnation of mental vigor, 
wit, knowledge, and pleasantry, which, under the name of the 
Edinburgh Review, had been their chief intellectual repast for 
several preceding years. There was nature and reason on both 
sides ; a resistance to foreign domination, even in matters of 
taste and speculation, on the one hand, — for the custom-house 
officer had published a book or two in his day, — and a hearty 
recognition of mental obligation on the other. Looking upon the 
man through the expanding vista of succeeding triumphs in peri- 
odical criticism and enlarged literary culture, we can readily take 
that medium ground between the extremes of independence and 
admiration, where the truth doubtless lies. 

At the period referred to, however, Jeffrey's position was a 
remarkable social phenomenon. The son of a Glasgow trades- 
man or mechanic, and educated for the bar, by means of a 
certain degree of taste, a winning style, polished irony, and 
clever argumentative ability, he vaulted to the throne of crit- 
icism — became a literary autocrat, the Napoleon of the world of 
letters ; not without some claim to the distinction, indeed, but 
yet owing it chiefly to ingenuity, perseverance, and audacity. 
The reason of this success is obvious. He was the pioneer 
reviewer ; the first who discovered the entire significance of the 
cabalistic " we^ With an acute, though not comprehensive, 
power of reflection, he united remarkable tact ; and, by virtue 
of these two qualities, naturally succeeded in pleasing that large 
class of readers who are neither wholly superficial nor profound, 
but a little of both. He had a metaphysical turn, without rising 
to the title of a moral philosopher ; and could speculate upon 



166 THE REVIEWER. 

abstract questions with an ease and agrecableness that rendered 
them entertaining. According! j, he made abstruse subjects 
familiar, and delighted many, who had never been conscious of 
great insight, with the idea that thej could appreciate the mys- 
teries of knowledge. There is more, however, that is plausible 
and attractive, than original or suggestive, in the metaphysical 
dissertations of Jeffrey. The talent of the writer, rather than 
the novelty or consistency of his theories, is to be admired. The 
article, for instance, on Alison's Taste, is a charming specimen of 
this kmd of writing ; but it wants definite and satisfactory impres- 
sions. It gratifies a taste in composition rather than a passion for 
truth, w^hich should guide and inspire such investigations. 

Qualities attractive in themselves become obnoxious when 
incongruously united with others of an opposite moral nature. 
To an honest and loving spirit ^the coexistence of beauty and 
falsehood is too painful for contemplation ; and the most fasci- 
nating manners revolt when their hypocrisy is once discovered. 
Sterne prays for a reader who will surrender the reins of imag- 
ination to the author's hands. Now, it is a law of human nature 
that such a tribute is only spontaneously yielded to geniality ; 
and the difficulty of a hearty concession, even of opinion, to Lord 
Jeffrey, is, that he is more peremptory and acute than sympa- 
thetic and respectful. An independent, and, especially, a rever- 
ent mind, naturally distrusts the dogmatical tone and plausible 
reasoning of his criticisms. He discusses a subject with charm- 
ing vivacity, exhibits an ingenuity that is admirable, and displays 
a knowledge of outward relations and historical facts that com- 
mands respect ; and, if the theme is purely objective, unassociated 
with sentiment of any description, and appealing to mere curios- 
ity, there are few writers who are more delightful. But, when 
he approaches a subject dear to affection, or consecrated by hal- 
lowed memories, we often shrink as from the touch of' a coarse 
and mechanical operator. He then seems to speak without 
authority ; we instinctively question his right to teach, and feel 
that he is a ruthless intruder into sacred places. 

The truth is, that Lord Jeffrey, by nature, education, and hab- 
its of thought, was a special pleader. He used words and ideas 
for an immediate purpose ; his object, when most in earnest, is to 



FRANCIS JEFFREY. " 167 

gain a point ; his liberality and depth of feeling were in reverse 
proportion to his cleverness and information. His great moral 
defect was want of modesty. He does not appear to have known, 
by experience, the feeling of self- distrust, but thought himself 
quite competent to dictate to the world, not only on legal, but on 
literary and social topics. This reliance upon his own reason 
gives force and point to those disquisitions the scope of which 
come within his legitimate range, but makes him oifensive. with 
all his agreeability of style, the moment he transcends his proper 
sphere. He manifests, in an extraordinary degree, the Scotch 
idiosyncrasy which refers everything exclusively to the under- 
standuig. He was essentially literal. 

The interest of Lord Jeffrey's memoirs centres in the fact that 
its subject was the prime agent of a literary revolution. The 
incidents of his life are the reverse of extraordinary ; his profes- 
sional career has been surpassed, in many instances, by his fellow- 
advocates; his habits were systematic and moral; and his outward 
experience was the usual alternation of busmess, society, jour- 
neys, and rural seclusion, which constitutes the routine of a 
prosperous and intelligent citizen. A native of Edinburgh, 
where he was chiefly educated, he passed a few uncomfortable 
months at Oxford ; returned home and finished his preparatory 
studies, under excellent teachers ; after much hesitation, adopted 
the law as a pursuit ; in due time was admitted to the bar, rose 
to the office of Lord Advocate, took an active part in politics, was 
twice happily married. He visited London frequently, and there 
enjoyed the best intellectual society ; made excursions to different 
parts of England, Wales, L'eland, and Scotland ; engaged zeal- 
ously in the debates and genial intercourse of one of the most 
brilliant clubs ever instituted ; and died in his seventy-seventh 
year, deeply lamented by a large and gifted circle of Edinburgh 
society, as well as by a tenderly attached family, and a host of 
noble friends. In this career, so eminently respectable and for- 
tunate, there is obviously little to impress the public. No 
dramatic scenes, curious adventures, tragic combats with fate, or 
touching mysteries of inward life ; all is plain, sensible, prudent, 
and successful. With the exception of a rhetorical triumph, a 
good descriptive hint of scenery or character, and those interludes 



168 ' THE REVIEWER. 

of sorrow incident to the lot of man, when the angel of death 
bears oflf the loved and honored, a singularly even tenor marks 
the experience of Jeffrey, as described in his correspondence. 

Neither is there discoverable any surprising endowment, or 
fascinating gift, such as renders the very name of some men a 
spell to quicken fancy, and to draw tears. The order of his 
mind is within the sphere of the familiar ; only in aptness, in 
constant exercise and skill, w^as it above the average. With the 
utilitarian instinct and thorough rationalism of his country, 
Jeflfrey wisely cultivated and judiciously used his powers ; above 
all, he never distrusted them, but, with the patience and the faith 
of a determined will, kept them at work to the best advantage, and 
probably reaped as large a harvest, in proportion both to the quality 
of the soil and the quantity of the seed, as Scotch shrewdness 
and thrift ever realized. Yet, to continue the similitude, it was 
more by successive crops, than by grand and lasting fruits, that 
his labor was rewarded. Some flowers of fancy and a goodly stock 
of palatable fodder grew in his little garden, but no stately ever- 
greens, sacred night-bloom, or glowing passion-flowers, such as 
make lovely forever the haunts of original genius. To drop met- 
aphor. Lord Jeffrey owes his reputation, and is indebted for the 
interest of his biography, to the eclat, influence, and fame, of the 
Edinburgh Review. The merit of taking the initiative in a 
more free and bold style of periodical literature, the advantages 
of the reform thus induced, and the intellectual pleasure derived 
from the open and spirited discussion, by adequate writers, of public 
questions, are benefits justly associated with his name, and alto- 
gether honorable to his memory. These services, however, are 
identified, in many minds, with an undue sense of his critical 
authority, and a submission to his dicta, occasioned by a graceful 
effrontery of tone, rather than absolute capacity. 

Circumstances greatly favored his literary success. At the 
epoch of the commencement of his enterprise, the liberal party 
stood in need of an efficient organ. The existent periodicals 
were comparatively tame and old-fashioned. It was one of those 
moments in public affairs when a bold appeal was certain to meet 
with an emphatic response ; and the party of friends, among 
whom originated the idea of a new and spirited jom^nal. were not 



FRANCIS JEFFREY. 169 

onlj fitted bj the vigor of their age, the ■warmth of their feel- 
ings, and their respective talents, for the undertaking in view, 
but were urged bj their position, sympathy, and hopes. The 
great secret of the immediate popularity of the work was 
undoubtedly its independence. The world instinctively rallies 
around self-reliance, not only in the exigencies of actual life, but 
in the domain of letters and politics. Accordingly, the freedom 
of discussion at once indulged, the moral courage and spirited 
tone of this fraternal band, won not less than it astonished. The 
example, so unexpectedly given, in a region distant from the cen- 
tre of taste and action in the kingdom, of candid and firm asser- 
tion of the right of private judgment, the fearless attitude 
assumed, and the enlightened spirit displayed, carried with them 
a novel attraction and the highest promise. 

The Edinburgh Review was the entering wedge in the old 
tree of conservatism which had long overshadowed the popular 
mind ; it was like the trumpet-note of an intellectual reinforce- 
ment, the glimmering dawn of a more expansive cycle in the 
world of thought. The feverish speculations ushered in by the 
French Revolution had prepared the way for the reception of 
new views ; the warfare of parties had settled down into a truce 
favorable to the rational examination of disputed questions. The 
wrongs of humanity were more candidly acknowledged ; a new 
school of poetry and philosophy had commenced ; and in Scot- 
land, where Jeffrey declares there was a remarkable/' intellect- 
ual activity and conceit of individual wisdom,'* a medium of 
opinion and criticism such as this was seasonable and welcome. 
Yet it is characteristic of his cool, uninspired mind, that he 
entered upon the experiment with little enthusiasm. He says, in 
his correspondence, that his " standard of human felicity is set 
at a very moderate pitch," and that he has persuaded himself 
that "men are considerably lower than angels ;" his expecta- 
tions were confessedly the reverse of sanguine ; and he eagerly 
sought to establish his professional resources, and make literature 
subsidiary. His allies were finely endowed. The wit of Sydney 
Smith alone was a new feature in journalism ; and the remarka- 
ble coterie of writers, of which the Review soon became the 
nucleus, gave it the prestige of more versatile talent than any 
15 



170 THE REVIEWER. ' 

similar work has ever boasted ; so that the editor justly says : " I 
am a feudal monarch at best, and my throne is overshadowed by 
the presumptuous crests of my nobles." 

A novelty in Lord Jeffrey's position was the social and even 
civic importance this species of literature acquired. The idea of 
a man of letters had been associated with refinement, meditation, 
and a life abstracted, in a great degree, from the active concerns 
of the world. There was, however, something quite adventurous, 
exciting, and eventful, in a vocation that so constantly provoked 
resentment and elicited admiration. Challenged by Moore, car- 
rying Boswell drunk to bed in his boyhood, in correspondence 
with Byron, dining with Scott, living within constant range 
of Sydney Smith's artillery of hoii-mots^ the companion of 
Brougham, Mackenzie, Playfair, Erskine, Campbell, Hamilton, 
and other celebrated men of the day, his natural fluency derived 
point and emphasis from colloquial privileges ; and doubtless 
somewhat of the antagonistic character of his writings was 
derived from the lively debates of the club, and excited by the 
attrition of such vigorous and individual minds. We are told of 
his ''speculative playfulness," "graceful frankness," and ''gay 
sincerity." These, and epithets of a similar kind, sufficiently indi- 
cate the causes of his success. It was through the very quali- 
ties that constitute agreeability in society that he pleased as a 
critic. More serious and intense writing would have repelled 
the majority. Lord Jeffrey made no grave demands on the 
thinking faculty ; he did not appeal to high imagination, but con- 
fined himself to the level of a glib, polished, clever, and often 
very pleasant style. It was a species of man-of-the-world treat- 
ment of books, and therefore very congenial to mediocre philoso- 
phers and complacent men of taste. 

But to recognize in such a critic the aesthetic principles which 
should illustrate works of genius, is to wantonly neglect those 
more earnest thinkers and reverent lovers of the noblest develop- 
ments of humanity who have, through a kindred spirit, inter- 
preted the mysteries of creative minds. There are passages in 
Coleridge, Ulrici, Schlegel, Mackintosh, Hazlitt, Wilson, Car- 
lyle, Lamb, and Hunt, which seize upon the vital principle, give 
the magnetic clue, prolong the key-note of the authors they have 



FRANCIS JEFFREY. 171 

known and loved, compared to which Jeffi'ey's most brilliant 
comments are as a pyrotechnic glare to the beams of the sun. 
The list of two hundred articles contributed by him to the Edin- 
burgh displays such a variety of subjects as it is quite impossi- 
ble for any one mind either thoroughly to master or sincerely 
relish. The part which he most ably performs, as a general 
rule, is what may be called the digest of the book ; he gives a 
catalogue raisome^ in the broadest sense of the term, and this is 
excellent service. Biographies, travels, works of science and 
history, are thus introduced to the world under a signal advan- 
tage, when there is no motive to carp or exaggerate in the state- 
ments. Next to this class of writings, he deals skilfully with 
what, for the sake of distinction, may be called the rhetorical 
poets — those who give clear and bold expression to natural senti- 
ment, without a predominance of the psychological and imagina- 
tive. The school of Pope, which appeals to the understanding, 
the fancy, and to universal feeling, he understands. Hayley, 
Crabbe, Campbell, Scott, and portions of Byron, he analyzes 
well, and often praises and blames with reason ; to Miss Edge- 
worth, Irving, and Stewart, he is just. But the sentiment of 
Barry Cornwall, the suggestive imagery of Coleridge, the high 
philosophy of Wordsworth, and the luxuriant beauty of Keats, 
often elude the grasp of his prying intellect. 

The lack of spiritual insight was another disqualification of 
Lord Jeifrey as a critic of the highest poetry. Trained to logical 
skill, and apt in rhetoric, he never seems to have felt a misgiving 
in regard to their sufficiency as means of interpretation of every 
species of mental product. The intuitive creations of genius, 
born of the soul and not ingenuously elaborated by study, the 
" imagination all compact" of the genuine bard, were approached 
by his vivacious mind with an irreverent alacrity. To place him- 
self in sympathetic relation with an individual mind, the only 
method of reliable criticism, was a procedure he ignored ; the 
play of his own fancy and knowledge, and the oracular announce- 
ment of his judgment, were the primary objects ; the real signifi- 
cance of the author quite secondary. He reviewed objectively, 
and arraigned books at his tribunal without that jury of peers 
which true genius claims by virtue of essential right. A. merely 



172 THE REVIEWER. 

agreeable or indifferent subject thus treated may afford entertain- 
ment, exactly as a lively chat on the passing topics of the day 
amuses a vacant hour ; but when the offspring of an earnest 
mind, and the overflowing of a nature touched to fine issues, are 
sportively discussed and despatched with gay authority, the impa- 
tience of more reverent minds is naturally excited. 

There was a philosophical elevation in Burke that tempered his 
severest comments ; a noble candor in INIontaigne that often rec- 
onciles us to his worldliness. Carlyle betrays so deep a sympa- 
thy that it robs his sarcasm of bitterness, and INIacaulay is so pic- 
turesque and glowing that the reader cheerfully allows an occa- 
sional want of discrimination to unity of effect. But to that 
mental superiority which consists in sprightliness of tone and 
ingenuity of thought we are less charitable ; pertness of manner 
is not conciliating ; and off-hand, nonchalant, and superficial decis- 
ions, in the case of authors who have excited real enthusiasm and 
spoken to our inmost consciousness, are not received without seri- 
ous protest. It is for these reasons that Lord Jeffrey occupies but 
a temporary place. He did not seize upon those broad and eternal 
principles which render literary obligations permanent ; he was 
an excellent pioneer, and cleared the way for more complete 
writers to follow : his independence was conducive to progress in 
criticism, and his agreeable style made it attractive ; but a more 
profound and earnest feeling is now absolutely required in dealing 
with the emanations of genius. Too much of the merely clever 
and amusing manner of Horace Walpole, and too little enthusi- 
asm for 'truth, characterize his remarks on the really gifted. In 
the discussion of current literature, the claims of which are those 
of information and style only, no reviewer can give a better com- 
pend, or sum up merits and defects with more brilliancy and 
tact. 

It is natural to expect, in the posthumous biography of influ- 
ential men, a key to the riddle of their success, a solution of the 
problem of character, and such a revelation of personal facts as 
will throw light upon what is anomalous in their career, or ex- 
plain, in a measure, the process of their development. The lives 
of Dr. Johnson, of Sir Walter Scott, of Schiller, and, among 
recent instances, of Keats, Lamb, and Sterling, by the new 



FRANCIS JEFFREY. 173 

information thej convey in regard to the domestic situation, the 
original temperament, and the private circumstances of each, have 
greatly modified previous estimates, and awakened fresh sympa- 
thy and more liberal judgments. The life of Lord Jeffrey leaves 
upon the mind a better impression of the man than obtains among 
those who knew him only through the pages of the Edinburgh 
Review, while it confirms the idea which those writings suggest 
of the author. On the one hand is found a love of nature and a 
life of the affections which could not have been inferred, at least 
to their real extent, from the articles on which his literary fame 
rests ; and, on the other, w^e perceive exactly the original habits 
of mind, course of study, and tendencies of opinion, to be antici- 
pated from his intellectual career. Accordingly, the integrity, 
steady friendships, conjugal and parental devotion, and enjoyment 
of the picturesque, which are so conspicuous in the man, and so 
worthy of respect and sympathy, should not be allowed to inter- 
fere with our consideration of his merits as a writer and critic. 

Jeffrey belongs essentially to the class of writers who are best 
designated as rhetoricians ; that is, if closely analyzed, it will be 
seen that his force lies entirely in sagacity and language. Flu- 
ency, vitalized by a certain animation of mind, is his principal 
means of effect : words he knows well how to marshal in brilliant 
array ; he points a sentence, rounds a paragraph, gives emphasis 
to an expression, with both grace and spirit. But the value of 
these elements of style is to be estimated, like the crayons and 
pigments of the artist, by the qualities they are made to unfold, 
the ideas they embody, the uses to which they are devoted. Jef- 
frey possessed them by virtue of an original quickness of intellect 
and patient industry. 

The most striking fact of his early culture is the perseverance 
with which he practised the art of composition, not as an academic 
exercise, but as a means of personal improvement ; he wrote elab- 
orate papers on various subjects ; and at the end recorded his 
opinion of them, usually the reverse of complacent; and this 
course he pursued for years, as is proved by the quantity and the 
dates of the manuscripts he left. No stronger evidence is re- 
quired of the predominance of the technical over the inspired in 
his authorship, than this deliberate toil to master the art of ex- 
15* 



174 THE REVIEWER. 

pression, as a means of success and a professional acquisition. It 
now appears that he carried the experiment into verse, and imi- 
tated the manner of all the English poets, evidently hoping to 
obtain the same facility in poetry as in prose. His good sense, 
however, soon induced him to abandon the former attempt ; but 
the knowledge of versification and the machinery of this highest 
department of letters, thus acquired, was the basis of his subse- 
quent criticisms, and accounts for his familiarity with the letter, 
and ignorance of the inward spirit, of the Muse. It is, indeed, a 
perfectly Scotch process, to set about a course of study and prac- 
tice in order to think correctly even on subjects so identified with 
natural sentiment as to repudiate analysis. The romance of lite- 
rature, or rather its highest function, — that of appealing to 
human consciousness and unfolding the mysteries of the passions 
and the awakened sense of beauty, — is efiectually destroyed by 
so cool and premeditated an application of causality to emotion. 
There is in it a literal mode of thought utterly destructive of 
illusion; the vague and inexplicable, the "terror and pity" which 
lift our nature above itself, and ally it with the infinite, are quite 
unrecognized ; the oracles of humanity are rudely disrobed, the 
sanctities of art violated for the sake of conventional propriety ; 
and what should be instinctively regarded as holy, precious, 
and apart from the familiar, is made to wear a commonplace 
aspect. 

Jeffrey seems to have mistaken a zest for external charms for 
a sympathy with poetical experience. Even his essay on Beauty, 
in the Encyclopsedia Britannica, is commended by his biographer 
for its graceful ingenuity, and not for sympathetic insight or 
profound analysis. His flippancy, however pleasant when ex- 
pended on casual topics, is often intolerable as applied to men of 
genius. He sees that Joanna Baillie is a ''nice old woman," but 
faintly realizes the positive grandeur of feeling w^hich, like a sol- 
emn atmosphere, exhales from Basil and De Montfort. He 
designates faults in Southey's poems, and recognizes the looming 
of his gorgeous fancy, as one might point out an agreeable pattern 
of chintz. He is very charitably disposed towards "Tommy 
Campbell," wonders at the " rapidity and facility" of Burns, and 
thinks, with his own "present fortune and influence," he could 



FRANCIS JEFFREY. 175 

have preserved him a long time. He is of opinion that "Words- 
worth, upon acquaintance, is "not the least lakish, or even in a 
degree poetical, but rather a hard and sensible Tvorldlj sort of a 
man;" and that Crabbe, "the wretch, has outrageous faults.*' 
He writes dunning letters to Horner, urging him to "do" Mal- 
thus or Sismondi, very much as a sea-captain might write to his 
mate to scrape a deck, or a farmer order his man to hoe a field 
of potatoes. He praises Dickens' " Notes" on this country, — as 
shallow a book of travels as ever appeared, — but does not relish 
the character of Micawber, one of the best creations of the author ; 
and he indulges in reminiscences of the New York Park and 
Bloomingdale, without having taken the trouble, during some 
months' residence in that city, to go up the Hudson. 

The most creditable of his literary tastes were his admiration 
of Sir James Mackintosh, and his sensibility to the pathos of such 
characters as Little Nell and Tom Pinch. Indeed, the "gentle 
sobs " he confesses, and the hearty appreciation he felt towards 
the humane novelist, seem to indicate that, with advancing life, 
his nature mellowed and his sensibilities deepened. A kindness 
for men of genius, which led him frequently to offer them judi- 
cious advice and pecuniary aid, is one of Jeffrey's most excellent 
traits ; and a social enterprise, which made his house the centre 
of intellectual companionship in Edinburgh, and induced habits 
of genial intercourse among his contemporaries, men of state, let- 
ters, and science, is also to be regarded as a public benefit. Nor 
less frankly should be acknowledged his unsullied honor, refined 
hospitality, habits of patient industry, and free and often brilliant 
conversation. But these benign and useful qualities, while they 
challenge respect and gratitude, and endear the memory of Jef- 
frey, do not give authority to his principles of literary judgment, 
or sanction his claim to be the expositor of the highest literature 
and the deepest truth. 

It is difficult to realize that the amiable character depicted in 
these volumes is the same individual whose critical severity once 
caused such a flutter in the dovecote of authors ; whose opinion 
was expected with almost the trepidation of a judicial sentence, 
and whose praise and rebuke were deemed, by so largp and 
respectable an audience, as final tests of literary rank. Lord 



176 THE REVIEWER. 

Cockburn assumes, what, indeed, facts seem greatly to confirm, 
that his award w^as usually conscientious, and that he had warmly 
at heart the best interests of literature as he understood them. 
Of malice or selfish views there is scarcely any evidence ; and his 
personal feelings, towards the very writers he most stringently con- 
demned, appear to have been kind. There is a striking contrast 
between the amenities of taste, good fellowship, domesticity, and 
rural enjoyment, amid which he lived, and the idea of a ferocious 
critic so generally identified with his name. It is another and a 
memorable instance of the want of correspondence, in essential 
traits, between authorship and character. To have inspired con- 
fidence, respect, and affection, to the extent visible in his memoirs, 
among the most gifted and the best men of his day, is ample 
proof of the merit claimed in his behalf by the friend who de- 
scribes his career. Yet, even admitting the conclusion drawn 
from these premises, — that " he was the founder of a new sys- 
tem of criticism, and this a higher one than had ever existed," 
and that "as an editor and a writer he did as much to improve 
his country and the world as can almost ever be done by discus- 
sion, by a single man," — thei*e is a progressive as w"ell as a 
retrospective standard, an essential as well as a comparative test, 
and a degree not less than an extent of insight to which such a 
writer is amenable, and by which alone he can be philosophically 
estimated. It is doubtless a most useful and desirable object of 
criticism to elucidate the art and discover the moral influence of 
literature ; the censor in both these spheres is a requisite minister 
to social welfare ; but they do not cover the whole ground. Genius 
may transgress an acknowledged law of taste in obedience to a 
higher law of truth ; and the so-called moral of a work may be, 
and often is, misinterpreted by conventional rules. Comprehen- 
sive sympathies, as well as quick perception, recognition of the 
original, as well as knowledge of the prescriptive, are needful 
qualities in the critic. Loyalty to intuitive sentiment, as well as 
to external standards, is demanded ; and a catholic temper, which 
embraces with cordiality the idiosyncrasies that invariably distin- 
guish original minds, is indispensable to their appreciation. 

It is not what Lord Jeffrey "rather likes," or what "will 
never do" in his opinion, that disposes of those appeals to the 



FRANCIS JEFFREY. 177 

human soul which the trulj gifted utter, and to which mankind 
respond ; and the courteous dogmatism and the jaunty grace 
with which this famous reviewer sometimes pronounces upon the 
calibre and the mission of the priests of nature, are, therefore, 
not only inadmissible, but frequently impertinent. One is occa- 
sionally reminded of Charles Lamb's impatience at the literal 
character of the Scotch mind, and his quaint anecdotes to illus- 
trate it, in Jeffrey's positive rule-and-compass style when dis- 
cussing the productions of genuine poets. How to enjoy these 
benefactions is as important a lesson as how to judge them ; and 
it is no less an evidence of discrimination deeply to feel beauties, 
than readily to pick flaws. 

The art of philosophizing attractively upon literary and polit- 
ical questions of immediate interest w^as. indeed, excellently illus- 
trated by Jeffrey, in those instances which did not surpass his 
power of insight. Where the personal feelings were not engaged, 
it was also an agreeable pastime to follow his destructive feats : 
see him annihilate a poetaster, or insinuate away the pretensions 
of a book-wright. This he did in so cool a manner, and with 
such a gentlemanly sneer, and refinement of badinage, that it 
was like watching an elegant fencing- match, or capital shots in a 
pistol-gallery. The process and the principle, however, of this 
kind of reviewing were based upon that French philosophy which 
delights in ridicule, and ignores reverence. Accordingly, its 
spirit is essentially sceptical, fault-finding, narrow, and smart, 
and therefore quite inapplicable to the intuitive, the latent, deli- 
cate, and more lofty emanations of literature. Its ofiice is to deal 
with talent, not genius : with attainments, not inspiration : with 
the form and rationale, not with the niinute principles and divine 
mysteries of life. Where knowledge, tact, and wit, were availa- 
ble, Jeffrey shone. He possessed a remarkable degree of what 
may be called the eloquence of sense ; but he lacked soul — the 
assimilating and revealing principle in man. His intellect needed 
humanizing. He looked upon an author objectively, with a scien- 
tific, not a sympathetic vision, and, therefore, as regards the 
highest, never came into a legitimate relation with them. He 
w^anted that enthusiasm which, if it sometimes exaggerates merit, 
and is blind to defects, yet always warms the mind into an unity 



178 THE REVIEWER. 

of perception, and an intensity of observation, which opens new 
vistas of truth. Jeffrey's analytical power is not denied; but 
one only demurs at the extent of authority as a critic which, by 
virtue of it, he claimed. There is a captious tone in his reviews 
of poets, an unimpassioned statement, a self-possessed balancing 
of the scales of justice, quite too mechanical to be endured with 
patience. He thrusts himself arrogantly into a sphere of thought 
or feeling sacred to thousands, and peers about with the bold 
curiosity of a successful attorney. He really appreciates only 
knowledge, reasoning powder, and the external laws of taste ; and 
whatever appealed to instincts which were deficient in him, he 
pronounced either false or absurd. 

A man of any real modesty or respect for others would hesi- 
tate before utterly condemning a foreign work held in universal 
admiration in the country of its origin ; and would ascribe the 
fact of its not impressing him to his own ignorance of the lan- 
guage, or insensibility to the sentiment. Jeffrey, on the contrary, 
flippantly ridicules, as puerile and meaningless, the favorite fiction 
of the Germans, while confessedly ignorant of their language, and 
obviously wanting that imagination to which it appeals. He rails 
against the errors of Alfieri, Swift, and Burns, with a scornful 
hardihood that shows how little their genius won his sympathies, 
or their misfortunes touched his heart. 

With a practical gauge, regulated by the intellectual tone of 
an Edinburgh clique, and having for its highest standard only 
intelligence and the laws of outward morality, he discusses the 
lives of such men, without a capacity to enter into their motives, 
to appreciate the circumstances in which they were placed, or to 
estimate the trials and triumphs of their natures. He ascribes 
Franklin's self-education to the antagonism of an unfavorable 
situation rather than to his own perseverance and love of knowl- 
edge ; and is chiefly struck in Cowper's poetry with the ballad on 
the loss of the Royal George. A. novel of Miss Edge worth, in 
which prudence and common sense are the ideal of human char- 
acter, he can heartily praise ; a well- written, authentic narrative, 
like Irving" s Life of Columbus, or a fiiithful and graphic biogra- 
phy, like the Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, he gives a very 
intelligent account of But, not content with such useful labors, 



FRANCIS JEFFREY. 179 

he has the temerity to wander out of his course, and tell the 
world that the Excursion '-will never do,'" and that the author 
of Genevieve and the Ancient Mariner is a foolish mystic. "His 
want of enthusiasm, however, in certain instances, is advan- 
tageous to a fair judgment, where works of pure imagination 
or sentiment are not in question. Thus, having cherished no 
unreasonable anticipations in regard to Fox's Life of James I., 
he was not disappointed on its appearance, like the rest of the 
world, but did the author and his book critical justice : and he 
exhibited with great candor the brilliant ideas of Madame de 
Stael, while he repudiated her perfectionist theories. Indeed, 
one of the greatest merks of Jeffrey is his able synopsis of 
works of fact and reasoning. He sums up a book as he would a 
case, and makes a statement to the literary world with the ingen- 
ious brevity and emphasis that he would use to a jury. One 
great reason of the popularity of the Edinburgh Review was 
that he made it an intelligent and readable epitome of current 
literature. 

Jeffrey claims a high and consistent morality for his long 
series of articles. It is true he always speaks disapprovingly of 
the errors of genius ; but we fail to perceive in them that enlarged 
and tender spirit of humanity which softens judgment, and throws 
the mantle of charity over the shivering form exposed to the pit- 
iless world. He failed in parliament, notwithstanding the shrill 
melody of his voice ; it was too piercing to fascinate ; and so we 
imagine his mind was too acute to embrace cordial Ij^ the interests 
a.nd mysteries of his race. Upon the former his attention was 
too exclusively fixed : for the latter he had not that sentiment of 
awe which gives a solemn meaning and a sublime pity to the 
contemplation of genius. Copious in information, vivacious in 
expression, dogmatical in tone, Jeffrey's talk, like his writing, 
was animated, witty, and fluent ; he was often abstracted in man- 
ner, his conversation was interlarded with French epithets, and, 
in seclusion, he was often depressed. There was moie tact and 
less seriousness of purpose and feeling about him than any of his 
brilliant contemporaries ; and, therefore, his writings have not 
the same standard value. He sacrificed to the immediate, and 
was a representative of the times. 



180 THE REVIEWER. 

There was, with all his apparent readiness and candor, no lit- 
tle prudence in his character. He was a kind of sublimated 
Yankee, and the ideal of a clever literary Scotchman. The poets 
he reallj did appreciate are Campbell and Crabbe — the one by 
his direct rhetoric and high finish, and the other by his detail 
and Flemish tone, rendered themselves intelligible to Jeffrey; 
this was partially the case, also, with Byron, Moore, and Keats ; 
but, where they trench upon the highly imaginative, or earnestly 
sentimental, he is obviously nonplussed. It is on account of the 
want of completeness in Jeffrey's views and sympathies that one is 
disposed to regard him as an able reviewer, instead of a great 
critic. The evidence of this may be» found in the very small 
quantity of his voluminous writings that now possesses any vital 
interest and permanent beauty. So many of his speculations 
want originality and a solid basis, and so many of his judgments 
have been superseded, that only here and there the lightsome 
aptness of a remark, the grace of a description, or the analytical 
justice of a comment, detain us; while the sensible tone and 
pleasing style vividly realize the cause of the sway once enjoyed 
by this autocrat of literature. 



THE TOLERANT COLONIST 

ROGER WILLIAMS. 



Perhaps the best definition of true greatness is loyalty to a 
principle ; it is certainly the secret of eminent success, and the 
pledge of true fame. Fidelity to a grand and worthy aim is the 
highest inspiration ; and it is because the subject of this memoir 
looked steadily beyond the pale of sect, and the motives of self- 
interest, and strove earnestly for an invaluable, progressive, and 
essential truth, that his memory is hallowed and his influence 
permanent. 

It is somewhat remarkable that so few incidents have been 
recorded of a man who first introduced a knowledge of the Indian 
languages into England, who first established a colony in the 
New World upon the recognized basis of toleration, and who 
anticipated Locke and Bayle in maintaining the excellence of that 
principle in its unlimited significance. The absence of the usual 
details in his biography may, perhaps, be accounted for by the 
prejudice which his individuality excited among his cotemporaries, 
r.nd the influence of sectional jealousy. It was at once the glory 
and the misfortune of Roger Williams to vindicate a great prac- 
tical truth, and to experience the transitions of opinion to which 
every independent mind is liable : hence, while he is endeared to 
all generous thinkers, he is the absolute exponent of no sect ; and 
it is only within a few years that justice has been awarded his 
name by the historian. Edacated at Oxford, he entered the 
Church of England, but soon left her priesthood for the more 
16 



182 THE TOLERANT COLONIST. 

simple faith of the Puritans^ came to America, and, bj question- 
ing the justice of the king's colonial patents, and the right of 
legal interference with religious faith and observance, drew upon 
himself reproach and persecution, before which he fled to the 
wilderness, and founded a colony in a more liberal spirit, embraced 
some of the doctrines of the Anabaptists, and, for a while, was a 
settled preacher of their denomination, but, finally, renounced 
their main tenet, and went through various phases of religious 
conviction, often to the detriment of his popularity and worldly 
success. He was repeatedly chosen to preside over the colony, 
twice sent on embassies to England in its behalf, and, through- 
out his life, successfully defended its interests. He was on terms 
of high confidence with all the New England governors, and 
exerted a rare influence over the neighboring aboriginal tribes. 
He was born in Wales, in 1624 ^, and died at Providence, R. I., 
in April, 1683. /'^^^ 

The only memorials of this remarkable man, previous to Elton's 
Life, except incidental notices, are his life by Professor Knowles, 
an elaborate poem by Judge Durfee, and a biographical introduc- 
tion to a modern edition of one of his controversial tracts. Mr. 
Elton's book has the advantage of being a consecutive narrative, 
with no more documents than are absolutely requisite to render 
it authentic. Many new facts, principally the result of inquiries 
in England, are also now made public for the first time ; and 
thus the volume is a valuable contribution to American biography, 
as well as a most interesting memorial of colonization and the 
progress of religious freedom. The subject deserves, and will 
ultimately attain recognition as one of those rare combinations 
of the saint and hero which redeem the annals of our race. 

Roger Williams implicitly believed in a Providence, and has 
identified himself with this faith by giving that name to the set- 
tlement he founded ; and it must be acknowledged that the facts 
of his career justify the sentiment he cherished. It would be 
difficult, in the annals of the period, to imagine a combination of 
events more adapted to educate a pioneer of toleration than those 
which attended his life. Of inherited endowments it is sufficient 
to note the remarkable identity of his genealogy with that of 
Cromwell. Moral courage and independent opinion were thus 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 183 

native to his blood. The next individual with whom his name is 
associated was Sir Edward Coke. From his birthplace, amid 
the beautiful scenery of Wales, we trace him to the Star Chamber 
in London, where his remarkable skill as a reporter gained him 
the favorable notice of this first lawyer of the age. Coke sent 
him to school and college ; and. subsequently, for a brief space, 
instructed him in his own profession. The' insight thus obtained, 
as to the principles of jurisprudence, was of great practical benefit 
to the future colonial legislator ; but a higher advantage resulted 
from this early contact with a mind seldom equalled for acute- 
ness, and a man who, notwithstanding his pitiless arrogance of 
temper, clearly understood the grounds of English liberty, and 
first stated them with precision and legal effect. It was certainly 
a propitious accident that rendered the author of the Bill of 
Rights, and the defender of the Commons, a benefactor of the 
youth destined to become the advocate of free principles in the 
New World. Williams early chose theology as a vocation ; and, 
when admitted to orders in the Church of England, became the 
companion of Hooker, and the most eminent divines of the times. 
If he did not have a parish in Lincolnshire, it was his place of 
residence ; and there, as is well known, the bishop of the diocese 
tacitly encouraged the Nonconformists, so that Williams had the 
best opportunity to realize his latent convictions ; and, when the 
persecution of Laud became intolerable, followed the example of 
his fellow-dissenters, and emigrated. 

The manner in which the arrival of the young clergyman at 
Boston, on the 5th of February, 1631, is mentioned, evinces the 
reputation he had already gained as a man of vigorous under- 
standing and individuality of character. He was first settled at 
Salem, and soon rose in the respect and attachment of the inhab- 
itants ; but, having openly asserted that the magistrates had no 
authority to punish a breach of the Sabbath, the civil power inter- 
fered, and thus began the series of intolerant acts which finally 
drove him to the complete assertion and practical development of 
religious liberty. The question ostensibly at issue, however, 
between the municipal authorities and the clergymen, was not 
the real ground of alienation. His offence actually consisted in a 
refusal to recognize a society that professed allegiance to the 



184 THE TOLERANT COLONIST. 

English Clmrch. The force of public opinion drove him from 
Salem ; and he became the minister of Plymouth, subsequently 
returning to his first residence. His known views on the subject 
of Church and State, and the emphasis with which he claimed 
the right of private judgment and free action in religion, neutral- 
ized the personal influence which a blameless life and signal 
abilities created. Governor Winthrop, always his friend, advised 
him to remove to a region where he could enjoy and advocate his 
sentiments without molestation; and suggested, as the nearest 
place, the country then designated as Narraganset Bay. He first 
went to Seekonk; but Winslow, the Governor of Plymouth, 
warned him, even after he had built and planted there, that he 
was still within the jurisdiction of their state ; and, accordingly, 
loath, as he says, " to displease the Bay," he transferred his set- 
tlement across the water. 

The circumstances of his departure from his old associates, and 
of his selection of a locality for the new colony, have an additional 
pathos and beauty that might inspire a poet. Having battled in 
vain against the narrow prejudices of his townsmen, he was sen- 
tenced to banishment ; but the season of the year, and the claims 
of a family, induced him to postpone his departure. The acqui- 
escence of the magistrates in this delay did not, however, prevent 
Williams from giving utterance to his opinions in conversation, 
and the attachment he had inspired gained him many willing 
auditors. This casual success irritated his enemies, and informa- 
tion was privately conveyed to their victim that a plan had been 
arranged to send him to England by a vessel about to sail. His 
only resource was flight ; and, on a winter's night, with a hatchet, 
compass, tinder-box, some provisions, and the Bible, he left his 
fireside and tearful wife and children, and plunged into the 
forest, trusting rather to savage hospitality than the mercy of his 
own race ; and, like Lear, in his keen sense of human cruelty, 
ready to brave the fury of the elements. The sufferings incident 
to such an expedition it is easy to imagine ; they form another 
episode in the drama of his life, infusing a spirit of endurance 
and the sanction of martyrdom into the heroic purpose of his soul. 
Less stern and wearisome was the subsequent exploration of the 
river upon which his little band floated in search of a new asylum. 



ROaER WILLIAMS. 185 

It was a beautiful summer day. Their leader had abeady enjoyed 
an interval of comparative ease ; his life had been miraculously 
preserved, and his confidence renewed. It was decided to select 
a location in accordance with the greeting of the Indians ; and 
thrice TFAa^cAeer.^ welcomed the fugitives to the site of Provi- 
dence. 

"When Eoger Williams entered this wild territory an exile, he 
determined to make it his abode : he selected his burial-place ; 
forty- seven years elapsed; his thin and baffled settlement had 
become a flourishing colony ; the principle of spiritual freedom, 
so dear to his heart, was practically realized — when, full of 
years and honor, his remains were laid away in this chosen sepul- 
ture. 

The Baptists claim Roger Williams as one of the founders of 
their church in America ; but this claim is but partially substan- 
tiated, and his true fame is that of the stanch advocate of tolera- 
tion in New England. He introduced a redeeming principle into 
the conflict of sects ; and, amid a people narrowed and hardened 
with bigotry, set an invaluable example of forbearance on the one 
hand, and bold self-assertion on the other. His name became a 
watchword of defence, and his settlement a home for the perse- 
cuted. There the civil and ecclesiastical powers were unmixed ; 
every citizen was at liberty to enjoy and peaceably inculcate his 
peculiar doctrine ; and the rights of all were respected. How 
greatly such a refuge and champion were needed is obvious from 
a glance at the condition of society in the earlier settlements. 
The clergy exercised a personal influence that overshadowed the 
community ; they were jealous of power, and sternly reprobated 
any variance from their standard of faith; public opinion was 
tyrannical, individual aspirations quelled, and private thought 
awed. The opponents of agencies like those, however honest and 
gentle, were immediately ostracized ; and fortunate was it that a 
safe retreat for such victims of fanatical resentment existed in 
Rhode Island. Thither fled the poor Quakers to escape whipping 
and the gallows, and there Anne Hutchinson and her disciples 
found sympathy and protection. Like the miniature republic of 
San Marino, and the constitutional monarchy of Sardinia to-day, 
was Rhode Island in the early colonial times. Without those 
16* 



186 THE TOLERANT COLONIST. 

mountainous features which render part of the scenery of Ver- 
mont so grand, or that fertile reach of meadow through which 
winds the Connecticut, this little state has attractive features 
which may well endear it as a home of freedom. The sea breathes 
its most tempered air upon its shores ; a sky as clearly azure as 
that of Rome, and sunsets as glowing as those that warm the 
Apcnnine peaks, ch:iracterize the region. A bracing, yet, for 
New England, singularly mild climate, belongs to that portion of 
the state which borders on the Atlantic. These advantages drew 
to this section of the country many intelligent settlers, and after- 
wards attached to it not a few illustrious men, w^iose names are 
now associated with its local charms and noble annals, such as 
Bishop Berkeley, Allston, and Malbone, the artists ; Stiles and 
Channing, the divines ; Perry, and a score of other naval heroes. 
While procuring the charter in England, Roger Williams was 
greatly assisted by Sir Henry Vane, another glorious spirit, and 
subsequently a martyr to the principles which his compatriot 
established in America. Acting as his medium with the commis- 
sioners, Vane procured all the desired articles of the charter : 
and Williams dedicated to Lady Vane his first work, which was 
published about this time. An incident of peculiar interest, 
brought to light by a letter of Roger Williams in this volume, is 
his intimacy, when thus occupied in London, with Milton. It 
appears they both were then engaged in the instruction of youth ; 
and while the poet enlightened the reformer on some of the 
niceties of Hebrew and Latin, the latter gave the secretary of 
Cromwell lessons in the Indian tongues. Thus Williams enjoyed 
the sympathy and counsel of the two noblest men of his age, 
Milton and Vane, and was doubtless inspired by their confidence 
to maintain the rights of conscience in his settlement. On 
turning thither, after his successful embassy, he was greeted at 
Seekonk by a fleet of canoes, and, under their escort, arrived at 
home, where the new charter was read in public, amid grateful 
acclamations. His second visit to England, to procure a renewal 
of these privileges, the revocation of Coddington's charter, and 
other benefits for the colony, was equally fortunate ; the occasion 
also enabled him to publish other works, and to enjoy the society 
of many brave and wise men who approved his noble purposes. 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 187 

The daughter of Sir Edward Coke, his first kind friend and 
patron, treated his advances, however, with disdain, on account of 
their diverse religious views; and the correspondence between 
them, now first published in Elton's volume,* exhibits, on her 
part, a lamentable narrowness of soul and harsh bigotry, and, on 
his, a gentleness and forbearance worthy of his character. 

The hostility of the elder colony towards the first legislator for 
liberty of conscience, did not remit when he had passed beyond 
its limits. He was obliged to go to Xew York to embark for 
England, not being able to obtain the consent of the Boston 
authorities to pass through their province. They even denied 
him the compliment of a vote of thanks for his eminent services 
during the Pequot war ; and when the states of New England 
formed a defensive league against their common and savage enemy, 
Rhode Island was not permitted to join. The policy of that 
infant state at this period was, indeed, a constant reproach to her 
less tolerant but more prosperous neighbor, of which the con- 
trast of their respective behavior to the Quakers is a striking 
illustration. 

Lamartine has given a highly dramatic picture of Napoleon's 
solitary advance towards the regiment of Grenoble after his flight 
from Elba ; not less courageous was the appeal to savage magna- 
nimity of Roger Williams, when he ventured alone into the midst 
of an exasperated tribe collected for battle, and, by the force of 
his calm and kindly resolution, subdued their vindictive purpose. 
Indeed, one of the most interesting features of his career is his 
relation with the Indians. By the magnetism of consistent 
kindness and fearless bearing, he won the confidence and respect 
of those children of the forest. Canonicus signed a deed of the 
land he purchased, and caused his nephew to attest it ; thence- 
forth a most friendly intercourse subsisted between the two chiefs 
and their pale guest. The magnanimity of Roger Williams is 
shown in his efiective mediation with these savage allies, when a 
formidable conspiracy threatened the colony which had so igno- 
miniously expelled him. In 1663 he writes to Winthrop : ''I 
discerned cause of bestirring myself, and staid the longer ; and, 
at last, through the mercy of the Most High, I not only sweetened 
his spirit, but possessed him that the plague and other sicknesses 

* Life of Roger Williams, by Romeo Elton, D.D., F. R. P. S. 



188 THE TOLERANT COLONIST. 

were alone in the hand of God." He is speaking of Canonicus, 
and his delusion that the English brought a pestilence among the 
aborigines, and deserved, therefore, to be cut off When the 
venerable sachem expired, Williams compares the feeling mani- 
fested bj his tribe and that of the Bay colonists at the funeral 
of their excellent governor : " He so lived and died, and in the 
same most honorable manner and solemnity (in their way) as you 
laid to sleep your prudent peacemaker, Mr. Winthrop, did they 
honor their prudent and peaceable prince." The romance which 
has been associated with the Indian race of this continent is fast 
vanishing. Well-informed writers, intent rather upon the scien- 
tific than poetical view, have demonstrated that, with much that 
is curious, there is little of promise or beauty in the nature of 
the red man ; and nowhere did the Indian present a more hope- 
less character than in the region colonized by Williams. It is a 
remarkable evidence of their drunken propensity, that a special 
vote of the Town Council was requisite even for so judicious a cit- 
izen as Williams to supply them with alcoholic medicine. In the 
state record, it is noted that "leave was granted to Roger Wil- 
liams to sell a little wine or strong water to some natives in case 
of sickness." It was not by direct expostulation only that he 
warded off impending danger from the other settlements. Through 
his Narraganset friends, in repeated instances, he obtained sea- 
sonable notice of the vindictive plans of other tribes, and gave due 
warning : thus, in the Pequot war, he prevented an Indian 
league, and saved the colony from destruction. He was also a 
mediator between the Indians themselves, and carried their peti- 
tion, '• that they might not be forced from their religion," to the 
English king. These offices gave him a strong hold upon their 
sympathies ; and we find in his correspondence that the influence 
thus acquired was constantly invoked by those who had most 
wantonly persecuted this brave messenger of peace. To his 
knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, Williams had now added 
the Indian tongue, of which he prepared a key during his first 
voyage to England. It was published in London. Few of the 
new settlers were able to maintain such direct intercourse with the 
natives; and he endeared himself to them by publicly advo- 
cating strict payment and definite boundaries for all lands 



ROGER WILLIAMS. 189 

occupied by the whites, notwithstanding the charter, by virtue 
of which they were held. The domain, ceded to him in 1638 
hj Canonicus, was given in consideration of '-many kind- 
nesses." '' Thousands nor tens of thousands of money," he 
says, " could not have bought of him an English entrance mto 
this bay ; but I was the procurer of that purchase by the lan- 
guage, acquaintance, and favor of the natives, which it pleased 
God to give me." This spirit of justice, however, was not 
relished by many of his countrymen, and increased the unpop- 
ularity incident to some of his opinions. The most heretical of 
these, it would appear from the charges preferred at his trial at 
Boston, in July, 1635, were the following : " That the mag- 
istrate ought not to punish the breach of the first table (or 
law of the Sabbath) otherwise than in such cases as did disturb 
the civil peace : that he ought not to tender an oath to an 
unregenerate or irreligious man ; that a man ought not to pray 
with such, however near and dear ; and that a man ought 
not to give thanks after sacrament, nor after meat." The 
authorities "professedly declared " that he ought to be banished 
from the colony for maintaining the doctrine '• that the civil 
magistrate might not intermeddle even to stop a church from 
heresy or apostasy ; " and, in order to annoy him, they refused a 
civil right demanded by the people of Salem, because it came 
through their obnoxious pastor. The cruel decree was indig- 
nantly opposed by the minority, for, says the historian, "he was 
esteemed an honest, disinterested man, and of popular talents in 
the pulpit." 

Of his mental powers we have no means of judging, except 
the respect and interest he awakened in those with whom he 
dwelt^ and the writings he left. These are chiefly of a contro- 
versial nature, and on questions which have, in a great measure, 
lost their significance. The style, too, is involved, quaint, and 
often pedantic. The views, however, advocated even in his 
polemic discussions, are often in advance of his time, and the 
sentiments he professes are noble and progressive. Thus, " The 
Bloody Tenent " is an earnest plea with the clergy for toleration ; 
and " A Hireling Ministry" presents bold and just arguments 
in support of free churches, and against an arbitrary system of 



190 THE TOLERANT COLONIST. 

tithes. In the Redwood Library, at Newport, is a copy of 
" George Fox digged out of his Burrows," a characteristic speci- 
men of the theological hardihood of Williams, as exhibited in his 
controversy with the Quakers. But it is from his original force 
of character, and his loyalty to a great principle, that Roger Wil- 
liams derives his claim to our admiration. His shades of opinion 
are comparatively unimportant ; but the spirit in which he worked, 
suifered, and triumphed, enrols his name among the moral heroes 
and benefactors of the world. His correspondence, not less than 
his life, evinces the highest domestic virtue, scrupulous fiscal 
integrity, a truly forgiving temper, rare tenacity of purpose, and 
a speculative turn of mind. Whatever changes of opinion he 
exhibits, his sentiments are always consistent, and genuine piety 
elevates a heart nerved by true courage, and expanded with gen- 
erous emotions. 

When from the empyrean of contemplation we survey the map 
of history, it is sometimes possible to trace the converging lines 
of opinion along the current of events until they unite to reveal 
and actualize truth. Accordingly, if the history of Toleration 
was written by a philosophic annalist, it would appear that a 
remarkable coincidence, both of speculation and action, at widely 
separate points, occurred to elucidate the great problem. . In such 
a discussion, the life of Roger Williams would form a significant 
chapter ; and it would be noted as a singular combination, that 
while Coke made clear and authoritative the political rights of 
the people, Vane broached philosophical arguments for republi- 
canism, and Milton nobly pleaded for the freedom of the press in 
England, Roger Williams, their friend and ally, vindicated religious 
toleration in America ; each of these achievements being elements 
of the same great cause. 



THE LITERARY ADVENTURER 

RICHARD SAVAGE. 



The distinction of civilized society is, that human life is sys- 
tematic, and the natural effect of those circumstances which, in 
any degree, except an individual from its usual routine and 
responsibilities, is to induce the impulsive action and precarious 
expedients that belong to wild races. In the world of opinion 
and habit we occasionally see those who, goaded by misfortune, 
or inspired by an adventurous temper, break away from the 
restraint which custom ordains, and, by hardihood in action, or 
extravagance of sentiment, practically isolate themselves from 
nearly all the social obligations acknowledged by mankind. 
Indeed, every human pursuit may be said to have its respectable 
and its vagabond followers. In trade, these extremes are obvious 
in the merchant and the pedler ; in the church, we have the 
bishop and the field-preacher ; and in literature, the author, who 
devotes the leisure that intervenes between the care of his estates 
and the engagements of fashionable society to a review, a poem, 
or a history, and the man about town, w^ho lives by his wits, and 
whose dinner is contingent upon a happy epigram, or a successful 
farce. Even when fortune and rank obtain, natures imbued with 
a vagrant or adventurous spirit will cut loose from social bond- 
age through mere waywardness or courage, as if there were 
gypsy blood in their veins, or the instinct of heroism or discovery 
in their hearts. 

The enthusiasm of misanthropy made Byron a pilgrim, that of 



192 THE LITERARY ADVENTURER. 

reform drove Shelley into exile, and that of sentiment won Rous- 
seau to a picturesque hermitage. How much of human conduct 
depends upon the source whence is derived the inspiration or the 
sanction of existence ! Family pride leads to a constant refer- 
ence to the standard of external honor ; the desire of wealth, to 
a keen adaptation of all occasions to interest; while the con- 
sciousness of having nothing beyond personal resources to look 
to for advancement or happiness, breeds in earnest minds an 
independence of mood almost defiant. To this we attribute, in 
no small degree, the recklessness of Savage. Every circum.- 
stance of his life tended to encourage self-will. He found 
neither in his birth, his fortunes, nor the incidents of his daily 
experience, any vantage-ground for confidence. Fate seemed 
to ordain between him and society a perpetual enmity. Hence 
his dauntless egotism. Driven from the outworks of life, he forti- 
fied the citadel. Sure of no palladium but his genius, he held it 
up as a shield against the arrows of scorn, or thrust it forth as 
an authentic emblem of his right to demand from others the sat- 
isfaction of his wants. Perhaps there is no instance, if we except 
Benvenuto Cellini, of more ferocious self-reliance, or rather per- 
tinacity in levying tribute. In his career we realize that the 
essential traits of civilized and barbarian life may assimilate ; 
that refined mental aptitude may coexist with extreme personal 
degradation ; and that the support of existence is often as preca- 
rious, and the habits of life as vagrant, in a Christian metropolis, 
as among the Indian tribes of America, or the wild hordes of 
the East. 

The genuine literary adventurer is, indeed, a kind of social 
Ishmaelite, pitching the tent of his convenience as necessity or 
whim suggests. It is his peculiar destiny to "take no note of 
time;" for he falls into any incidental scheme of festivity at 
morning, noon, or night, joins any band of roysterers he may 
encounter, takes part in the street-corner discussions of any 
casual knot of politicians, and is always ready to go to the 
theatre, the club, a private domicile, or a coiFee-house, with the 
first chance-acquaintance he meets. He hangs loose upon the 
skirts of society. If the immediate is agreeable, he scorns 
change, and hence will prolong his social visits to the infinite 



EICHARD SAVAGE. 193 

annoyance of those who keep regular hours. "Where he break- 
fasts, dines, or sleeps, is problematical in the morning. As the 
itinerant musician goes forth to win entertainment by his dulcet 
notes, the vagabond man of genius trusts to his fund of clever 
stories, his aptitude as a diner-out. his facility at pen-craft, or his 
literary reputation, to win upon the sympathies of some humane 
auditor, or chain the attention of the inquisitive, and thus provide 
for the claims of physical necessity. 

His appeal is three-fold — to the benevolent, the curious, and 
the vain; and, in a large city, with the entrie of a few circles 
and places of resort, it will be, indeed, a strange hazard that 
deprives him wholly of these long-tried expedients. His agreea- 
bility makes him friends, whom his indiscretions at length weary ; 
but, as he generally prefers to do all the talking himself, he 
gradually ceases to be fastidious, and, when he cannot fraternize 
with a scholar or a gentleman, contents himself with inferior 
society. The consciousness of superior gifts and singular mis- 
fortunes soon blunts that delicacy which shrinks from obligation. 
He receives a favor with the air of a man to whom consideration 
is a birthright. He is, as Landor says of woman, more sensitive 
than grateful : borrows money and books without a thought of 
returning them; and, although the most dependent of beings, 
instantly resents the slightest approach to dictation as a per- 
sonal insult. He is emphatically what Shakspeare denominates a 
" landless resolute ; " considers prudence too mean a virtue for 
him to adopt, and industry a habit unworthy of his spirit. His 
wits are his capital, which he invests day by day ; now and then, 
perhaps, embarking them in a more deliberate venture, by way 
of polishing his tarnished escutcheon. Equally exempt from the 
laws of sentiment and those of economy, he makes unconscionable 
drafts upon the approbativeness and the malignity of others, by 
inditing panegyrics and lampoons. 

A subscription, a dedication, or a satire, by awakenmg the 
generosity, the pride, or the fear of the world, alternately supply 
the exigencies of the moment ; while the utter loss of self-respect 
is prevented by some occasional effort in a nobler vein, or com- 
placent memories of past renown. Custom renders him at home 
everywhere ; address repudiates individual rights ; and a kind of 
17 



194 THE LITERARY ADVENTURER. 

happy boldness annihilates, by a stroke of humor or a phrase of 
geniality, the barriers of artificial reserve. He is the modern 
knight-errant ; prompt to challenge recognition, and, with gal- 
lant bearing, win the guerdon to which he aspires, whether it 
be the smile of beauty, the companionship of rank, or the priv- 
ileges that Avealth dispenses. 

Experience in shifts, and a sanguine temper united to capacity 
for reflection, render him withal a philosopher ; so that, although 
keenly alive to present enjoyment, he can suffer with fortitude, 
and heroically sport with deprivation. He is vividly conscious 
of what Madame de Stael declares is one o;reat secret of delight 
— its fragility. His existence is singularly detached from routine, 
and, like a bird or a butterfly, he soars or alights, as caprice sug- 
gests — a chartered adventurer, to whom has been presented the 
freedom of nature. Leisure gives scope to his observation ; need 
quickens his perception : and the very uncertainty of subsistence 
adds infinitely to the relish of each gratification. A voluntary 
outlaw, he claims ransom from those his talents have made cap- 
tive : regarding himself as a public benefactor, he deems society 
under obligations to take care of him ; prodigal in his mental 
riches, he despises those who are parsimonious either of their time 
or their hospitality ; and sincere in his admiration, and perhaps in 
his advocacy, of all that is magnanimous and beautiful, he learns 
to regard material advantage as his just inheritance, which 
directly to seek would obscure the heraldry bestowed by his 
genius, and sanctioned by misfortune. 

To him might be literally applied Valentine's argument in 
Fletcher's comedy of "Wit without Money:" 

** Means — 
Why, all good men 's my means ; my wit 's my plough, 
The town 's my stock, taTcrn 's my standing-house 
(And all the world knows there 's no want) ; all gentlemen 
That love society love me ; all purses 
That wit and pleasure open are my tenants ; 
Every man's clothes fit me ; the next fair lodging 
Is but my next remove ; and, when I please 
To be more eminent, and take the air, 
A piece is levied, and a coach prepared, 
And I go I care not whither." 



RICHARD SAVAGE. 195 

" What 's my knowledge, uncle? 
Is 't not worth money ? What 's my understanding? 
Travel ! reading ! wit ! all these digested ! My daily 
Making men, some to speak, that too niuch phlegm 
Had frozen up ; some, that spoke too much, to hold 
Their peace, and put their tongues to pensions. 

Besides these ways to teach 
The way of nature, a manly love, community 
To all that are deservers, not examining 
How much or what 's done for them ; it is wicked." 

It is peculiar to this class of men to be unconscious of the 
diverse attractions of talents and character. Their egotism pre- 
vents an habitual recognition of the important fact that the enter- 
tainment afforded by conversational abilities and personal sympa- 
thy are two very distinct things. Because their talk is listened 
to with avidity, their wit productive of laughter, and their repu- 
tation of deference, they •deduce the erroneous conclusion that 
individually and for themselves an interest is awakened ; whereas, 
in most cases, the charm is purely objective. By men of the 
world genius of a literary kind is regarded in the same light as 
dramatic, artistic and juggling cleverness : the result is not asso- 
ciated with the person ; it is the pastime, not the man, that wins. 
A conviction so w^ounding to self-love is not easily adopted ; and, 
as a natural consequence, the deluded victims of social applause 
continue, in spite of mortifying experience, to look for a degree 
of consideration, and demand a sympathy, which it is absurd to 
expect from any but the verv liberal and the naturally kind, who 
confessedly form the exception, not the rule, in general society. 
Yet, in actors, authors, and artists, who possess great self-esteem, 
this error is the rock upon which the bark of hope invariably 
splits. There seems to be a kind of inevitable blindness in. this 
regard. Slowly and by long degrees comes home the feeling that 
it is what the man of genius does, not what he is, that excites 
admiration. When the pageant of an hour fades, what care the 
narrow-minded and the selfish for those who have ministered to 
their pleasure ? Only enthusiasm lingers and pays tribute ; only 
gratitude is sensible of an obligation incurred ; reverence alone 
dreams of any return, and conscientiousness is the sole monitor 
that pays the debt. 

The incidents of his life rather than the creations of his genius 



196 THE LITERARY ADVENTURER. 

have preserved the fame of Savage. His poems are his only 
writings now recognized, and we find them regularly included in 
editions of the British anthology. It is, however, but here and 
there, scattered through a long array of heroics, that we can 
detect either originality or raciness. Like his life, these effusions 
are crude and unsustained ; they lack finish, completeness, and 
unity. Deformed by coarseness, and sometimes by obscurity, 
they often repel taste ; and their frequent want of clear and uni- 
form design induces weariness. Their most genuine interest is 
personal ; we naturally associate them with the misfortunes of the 
author, and the special references are not without a pathetic zest. 
The ''Progress of a Divine" and ''The Bastard," although 
redeemed by wit and cleverness, are too grossly indelicate for 
general perusal. The bitterness of the one, and the confident 
hilarity with which the other beginSj-are very characteristic of 
Savage. It is evident that he possessed, in an uncommon degree, 
what the phrenologists call the organ of wonder, and metaphys- 
ical writers a sense of the sublime. In his descriptions of nature 
and life, we perceive the inspiration of a reflective ideality. His 
couplets occasionally glow with vital animation, and his choice of 
epithets is often felicitous. Vigor, fluency, and expressiveness, 
at times, indicate that there was an original vein in his nature, 
though too carelessly worked to produce a great and consistent 
result. "The Wanderer" is the poem upon which he evidently 
bestowed the greatest care. It may be regarded as his own epi- 
taph, written by himself, and embodying the dark phases of his 
career, the most vivid of his sensations, and the beauty of his 
moral sentiments, combined with the want of system, the self- 
esteem, recklessness, and courage, which alternated in his feelings 
and conduct. 

The following passages evidently allude to actual experience : 

" Is chance a guilt? that my disastrous heart, 
For mischief never meant, should ever smart ? 
Can self-defence be sin ? Ah, plead no more ! 
What though no purposed malice stain thee o'er ? 
Had Heayen befriended thy unhappy side, 
Thou hadst not been provoked, or thou hadstdied." 



" No mother's care 

Shielded my infant innocence with prayer ; 



RICHARD SAVAGE. 197 

No father's guardian hand my youth maintained, 
Called forth my -virtues, or from yice restrained." 

He learned the process of glass manufacturing, by sleeping 
during winter nights, when a vagrant, near the furnaces : 

" Yon limeless sands, loose driving with the wind. 
In futui'e cauldi'ons useful textures find. 
Till, on the furnace thrown, the glowing mass 
Brightens, and brightening hardens into glass." 

The homeliness of such lines is like Crabbe, yet his capacity 
for more poHshed versification is shown in his allusion to Pope, 
as polished and emphatic as that of the master rhymer himself : 

" Though gay as mirth, as curious though sedate. 
As elegance polite, as power elate. 
Profound as reason, and as justice clear. 
Soft as compassion, and as truth severe ; 
As bounty copious, as persuasion sweet. 
Like nature various, and like art complete. 
So firm her morals, so sublime her views, 
His life is almost equalled by his muse." 

In metaphor, also. Savage is effective. Thus he compares the 
"steamy currents" at morning twilight to "veins blue winding 
on a fair one's arm ; " and, of a river hidden in umbrage, observes : 

" Yet, at one point, winds out in silver state. 
Like virtue from a labyrinth of fate." 

He calls shells "'tinctured rivals of the showery bow;" and, 
describing a vast prospect, says : 

" The herds seem insects in the distant glades, 
And men diminished as, at noon, their shades." 

His adjectives are sometimes very graphic, however inelegant ; 
he speaks of warming himself at " chippy fires," and, detailing a 
repast, informs us, 

" That o'er a homely board a napkin 's spread, 
Crowned with a heapy canister of bread." • 

The gleams of high sentiment that, like flashes of heat-light- 
ning from a dense cloud, emanate from Savage, are refreshing, 
and justify his biographer's tribute to his better nature. Self- 
indulgent as he was, he declares that 

17* 



198 THE LITERARY ADVENTURER. 

*' Reason's glory is to quell desire." 
Although he obviously is in his element when 

" In gay converse glides the festive hour," 
he yet recognizes a providence in affliction : 

" Why should I then of private loss complain, 
Of loss that proves, perchance, a brother's gain ? 
The wind that'binds one bark within the bay. 
May waft a richer freight its wished-for way. 
Man's bliss is like his knowledge, but surmised, 
One ignorance, the other pain disguised. 
When seeking joy, we seldom sorrow miss. 
And often misery points the path to bliss. 
Know, then, if ills oblige thee to retire. 
Those ills solemnity of thought inspire.*'' 

The following random extracts betray a vivid consciousness of 
his own fate and tendencies : 

" False pride ! what vices on our conduct steal 
From the world's eye one frailty to conceal ! 
Ye cruel mothers ! soft ! those words command ! 
So near shall cruelty and mother stand ? 
Can the dove's bosom snaky venom draw? 
Can her foot sharpen like the vulture's claw? " 

* * * ♦ 

** Loosed to the world's wide range, enjoined no aim. 
Prescribed no duty, and assigned no name, 
Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone, 
His heart unbiased, and his mind his own." 

* * * * 
*' From ties maternal, moral, and divine. 

Discharged my gasping soul ; pushed me from shore. 
And launched me into life without an oar." 

* * * * 
" Born to himself, by no profession led. 

In freedom fostered, and by fortune fed, 

Nor guides, nor rules, his sovereign choice control. 

His body independent as his soul. ' ' 

* * * * 
*' Iijly secure, though conscious soon of ill^ 

JsTor taught by wisdom how to balance will^ 

Rashly deceived, I saw no pits to shun, 

But thought to purpose and to act were oneJ^^ 

That we have not exaggerated the prominent claim of Savage 
to represent the literary adventurer, a glance at the account of 



RICHARD SAVAGE. 199 

him by Johnson — the most remarkable and original of his 
" Lives of the Poets " — will, at once, evidence. We are there 
told that, when a guest, he " could neither be persuaded to go to 
bed at night, or rise bj day ; " that " he considered himself dis- 
charged, by the first quarrel, from all ties of honor and grati- 
tude;" that " when he loved a man, he suppressed all his faults, 
and, when he had been offended by him, suppressed all his 
virtues ; " " always asked favors without the least submission 
or apparent consciousness of dependence ; '' " purchased the lux- 
ury of a night by the anguish of cold and hunger for a week : " 
"though he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not often 
leave a friend, he had not often a friend long, without obliging 
him to become a stranger ; " and that " the reigning error of his 
life was that he mistook the love for the practice of virtue."' 

We could easily multiply well authenticated instances of the 
foibles and the inconsiderateness, the casual triumphs and low 
expedients, that doomed him to vibrate " between beggary and 
extravagance." To indicate the relative value he attached to his 
inware resources and his outward obligations, a few anecdotes 
will suffice. While an inmate of Lord Tyrconnel's family, he 
sold several books which his host had presented him, with his 
lordship's arms stamped upon them : and, at the same time, 
betrayed the most fastidious and even "superstitious regard to 
the cerrection of his proof-sheets." While on the most intimate 
and friendly terms w^ith Dennis, he wrote an epigram against 
him ; and when his friends, their patience quite exhausted, con- 
tributed to secure him a permanent retreat in the country, he 
indulged in the most illusive dreams of rural felicity, and before 
he was half-way on the road to Wales, sent back to London for 
new supplies, which he soon expended among pleasant compan- 
ions in Bristol, whose keen appreciation of his social qualities 
induced a versified comparison of their merits with those of his 
London protectors, by no means to the advantage of the latter, 
notwithstanding his recent obligations. The reverse of Dominie 
Sampson, he was very scornful at the idea of new habiliments 
being furnished him without the intervention of his own taste 
and authority. The mortification of illegitimacy was solaced by 
that of noble blood and the advantages he traced to " the lusty 



200 THE LITERARY ADVENTURER. 

stealth of nature." Scenes of profligacy, social ostracism, and a 
criminal trial, utterly failed in undermining a "steady confidence 
in his own capacity ; " while he only regarded poverty as an evil 
from the contempt it is apt to engender ; and he always thought 
himself justified in resenting neglect ' ' without attempting to 
force himself into regard." Such a combination of traits, devel- 
oped under extraordinary vicissitudes, completely illustrates the 
spirit of literary adventure, and the perversity of unregulated 
talent. 

Yet this dark biographical picture, gloomy as one of Spagno- 
letto's martyrdoms, is not without mellow tints, nor its hard out- 
lines unrelieved by touches of humanity. Upon his first discov- 
ery of a mother's name and existence, revealed to him by several 
documents found among the effects of his deceased nurse, the 
heart of Savage awakened to all the latent tenderness inspired by 
a new-born affection. It was his habit, long after the determined 
repulse of his unnatural parent had quenched the hope of recog- 
nition, to walk to and fro before her house, in the twilight, amply 
compensated if, through his tears, he could obtain but a glimpse 
of her robe as she passed near the window, or see the gleam of a 
candle in her chamber. At the period of his greatest want and 
highest mental activity, he composed while perambulating a ver- 
dant square, or retired mall, and then entered a shop, asked for 
a scrap of paper, and noted down his conceptions. In this man- 
ner he is said to have written an entire tragedy ; and certainly 
few instances of resolute authorship in the grasp of poverty can 
equal its touching fortitude. 

His speech to the court, when arraigned for sentence after 
being convicted of homicide, is said to have been manly and elo- 
quent, and certainly w^on for him great sympathy and respect. 
There must have been something in his character that inspired 
esteem, as well as in his fortunes to kindle compassion, from the 
interest so frequently excited and patiently manifested in his 
behalf by individuals widely separated in position and opinions. 
In some instances, too, the independence of his nature exhibited 
itself in a noble manner. The spirited letter which he addressed 
to a friend from the prison at Bristol, where he was incarcerated 
for debt, and so drearily terminated his eventful career, is a fine 



RICHARD SAVAGE. 201 

example of self-respect and elevation of sentiment. Hunt justly 
remarks, in his notice of the once celebrated Mrs. Oldfield, that 
her annuity to Savage gave posterity a liking for her ; and Dr. 
Johnson assures us that the subject of his remarkable memoir, 
when banished from London, parted from him with tears in his 



Indeed, the phases of character and the actual experiences of 
Savage, if analyzed and dramatically unfolded by a thoroughly 
sympathetic delineator, would afford a most fruitful theme. 
Imagine it handled by Dickens, in his best vein : we should have 
night-wanderings as forlorn as those of little Nell and her grand- 
father, a trial scene more effective than that of Barnaby Rudge, 
jollities eclipsing those of Dick Swivel ler, and reveries more 
grandly pathetic than the death-bed musings of Paul Dombey. 
For accessories his acknowledged relation to the nobility and his 
intimate association with the men of talent of the day would fur- 
nish ample scope ; for so notorious was his story at the time, that 
Macaulay, in his " History of England," says that Earl Rivers 
is remembered chiefly on account of his illegitimate son ; and the 
Countess of Macclesfield, brazen as was her temper, was obliged 
to fly from Bath to escape the observation of fashionable crowds 
induced by the satirical poem of Savage, called " The Bastard." 

Prompted by that love of excitement which becomes the ruling 
impulse of the improvident and forlorn, Savage went forth one 
night from his obscure lodgings in search of profitable meditation, 
a boon companion, or a lucky adventure. There was in his elon- 
gated and rough face a sad expression that indicated habitual 
melancholy ; not the resigned air of meek endurance, nor the 
gravity of stern fortitude, but that dark, brooding pensiveness 
which accompanies undisciplined passions and a desolate exist- 
ence. There was, however, a redeeming dignity in his measured 
gait, and an unsteady accent in his voice as he soliloquized, that 
would have '' challenged pity" in a sensitive observer. 

He entered a tavern — an accustomed haunt, where convivi- 
ality had often beguiled him of " the thing he was." The sight 
of one or two familiar faces, and the anticipation of a jolly even- 
ing, changed, at once, the mood of the homeless wit. That coarse 
exterior suddenly wore a milder aspect : that solemn air gave way 



202 THE LITERARY ADVENTURER. 

to abandon ; and, all at once, he looked like a man ready to 
"flit the time lightly," and "rouse the night-owl with a catch." 
It was thoughtfulness eclipsed by good fellowship — Hamlet 
transformed into Sir Toby Belch. The carousal brought on the 
hour of feverish reaction, and the party* at length sallied out to 
breathe the fresh air, and vent their superfluous merriment. 
Attracted by a light that gleamed from another house of enter- 
tainment, they entered, and unceremoniously disturbed a group 
already in possession. High words arose, swords were unsheathed, 
and when the morning dawned. Savage found himself a prisoner 
awaiting trial for murder. At this crisis of his fate, Avith the 
ban of the law impending, amid the solitude of captivity, how 
must the events of his life have passed in gloomy succession 
before his mind, and what desperate emotion must the retrospect 
have engendered ! 

We can scarcely imagine a more contradictory and pathetic 
story invented ly fiction. The illegitimate offspring of a countess 
and an earl, brought up by a hireling, taken from St. Albans 
grammar-school in boyhood to be apprenticed to a shoemaker ; 
cut off by an infamous falsehood from the inheritance assigned 
him by his father ; accidentally discovering his birth only to 
become the object of relentless maternal persecution ; with the 
loss of his nurse, cast adrift upon the world and forced into 
authorship to escape starvation, and now only with the prospect of 
an ignominious death incurred in a tavern brawl ; what incen- 
tives his memory could furnish to remorse and despair ! His 
whole experience was anomalous. Of noble origin, yet the fre- 
quent associate of felons and paupers ; with a mother for his most 
bitter enemy, and the slayer of one who never offended him ; long 
accustomed to luxury, yet finding his best comfort in a jail ; con- 
scious of superior abilities, yet habituated to degrading expedi- 
ents ; his written life touching the hearts of thousands, while his 
actual condition annoyed more often than it interested ; the guest 
of a wealthy lord, the confidant •of men of genius, the intimate 
of Wilkes and Steele, and the cynosure of many select circles in 
London and Bristol, he sometimes famished for want of nourish- 
ment, and " slept on bulks in summer and in glass-houses in the 
winter." From the king he received a pardon, after being con- 



RICHARD SAVAGE. 203 

demned to the gallows, and from a fashionable actress a pension ; 
the queen's volunteer-laureate, he died in a prison-cell, and was 
buried at the expense of the jailer. The records of human vicis- 
situde have few more painful episodes ; the plots of few trage- 
dies boast more pathetic material ; and the legacies of genius, to 
those who explore them to analyze character and trace the influ- 
ence of experience upon mental development, rarely offer the 
adventurous and melancholy interest that is associated with the 
name of Richard Savage. He is the type of reckless talent, the 
ideal of a literary vagabond, the synonym for an unfortunate wit. 
In his history the adventures of hack-writers reach their acme ; 
and his consciousness embraced the vital elements of dramatic 
experience, the internal light of fancy and reflection, and the 
external shade of appalling fact. 



THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST 

DE WITT CLINTON. 



The leaders of opinion and men of executive genius, in all 
nations and eras, sustain an inevitable relation to their age ; and 
it is a curio as study to investigate how circumstances of time and 
place modify their activity. The memories of Westminster have 
enshrined the oratorical triumphs of Fox, Pitt, and Burke, and 
their agency on public sentiment is woven into the very texture 
of England's political annals ; while the monuments and galleries 
of Florence bear witness to the dominant taste for art which was 
fostered by Lorenzo de Medici. In a young republic whose ma- 
terial progress is without example, the evidence of patriotic self- 
devotion is contii^ually obliterated by the advancing tide of civil- 
ization, radical improvements are superseded by new inventions, 
and it is often a difficult task to recall to grateful recognition the 
labors and triumphs of national benefactors. The insatiable pres- 
ent renders men oblivious of the past ; the inviting future pre- 
cludes retrospection. Yet, to those alive to local history and the 
origin of great practical ideas, daily observation keeps fresh the 
memory of Clinton in his native state. As a stranger enters her 
unrivalled bay, he sees in the fortified Narrows a proof of his 
patriotic forethought ; in an afternoon excursion the Bloomingdale 
Asylum and Sailor's Snug Harbor, whose endowment he secured, 
bear witness to his benevolent enterprise ; while the grand sys- 
tems of public instruction, of mutual insurance, of internal naviga- 
tion, of savings-banks, reform of the criminal law, and agricultural 



DE WITT CLINTON. 205 

improvement, however modified bj the progress of science, con- 
stantly attest the liberal and wise polity which under his guidance 
gave them birth. 

Born on the second of March, 1769, and dying on the eleventh 
of February, 1828, De Witt Clinton entered upon life when the 
contest between the two original parties under the Federal gov- 
ernment was at its height, and closed his existence at the epoch 
of their virtual dissolution. By inheritance and sympathy he 
ardently espoused one class of opinions, and experienced the mod- 
ifications of political sentiment incident to the course of events 
and the development of the nation. He became one of the gladi- 
ators in the civic arena, when state rights, foreign influence, and 
a thousand exciting questions, agitated the land. It is not our 
purpose to review his political career, to recall the misrepresenta- 
tion, ingratitude, and insult, of which he was the victim, or to 
trace the tortuous current of alternate proscription and idolatry 
that bore him over the changeful sea of party strife. The same 
battle, in divers forms, is continually fought, and its chief inci- 
dents belong to the history of contemporary opinion. Like all 
aspirants, he was baffled ; like all chiefs, envied ; like all loyal 
men, persecuted. In an impartial estimate of his character, it is 
sufficient proof of his integrity that it was never successfully 
assailed ; of his patriotism, that it was ultimately recognized : of 
his republicanism, that his faith in the people never faltered : of 
his magnanimity, that he forgave injury : and of his statesman- 
ship, that it was victorious. Doubtless, a want of flexibility, a 
temper too dictatorial, a power of invective sometimes unchas- 
tened, and an extreme tenacity of personal conviction, led him 
into errors. But now that the storm has passed away, his traits 
are reflected in noble relief upon the calm horizon, visible to the 
eyes of posterity. The test of time has proved the sterling qual- 
ities of the man, and we impatiently scatter the web of intrigue 
and the mist of prejudice, to contemplate only those characteristic 
services that planted his star forever in the galaxy of our coun- 
try's firmament. 

The domestic antecedents of De Witt Clinton were favorable to 
the inheritance both of energetic character and of pubhc spirit. 
His name is of Norman origin, and is often cited by the old 
18 



206 THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST. 

French chroniclers of knightly achievements. Among his imme- 
diate ancestors ^vas a Royalist cadet, one of the Continental 
refugees after the civil war, who, on the restoration of t"he house 
of Stuart, experienced its faithless ingratitude. The son of this 
progenitor vainly sought to regain the estates forfeited by the 
loyalty of his exiled father, who died in Ireland ; nor were the 
family misfortunes retrieved by the next generation, for Charles 
Clinton, in the prime of his life, resolved to emigrate to America. 
With a view to pastoral advantages, he made choice of that fertile 
district of Orange County, in the State of New York, whose 
grassy acres still supply the best products of the dairy. Here 
his superior intelligence gave him the lead in social life among 
the isolated band that formed the infant colony ; and on the fron- 
tier and fortified farm, sixty miles from the city, the father of 
De Witt Clinton was born. Thus, by a sad experience of king- 
craft and the dis(jipline of primitive colonial life, was our young 
statesman nurtured in patriotic self-reliance, while his ancestral 
qualities were enriched by the old Dutch blood of his mother's 
race. Sprung from educated and loyal, adventurous and brave 
progenitors, he entered upon life early enough to witness the sac- 
rifices which acquired freedom for his country : and first beheld 
the city whose glory he was destined to promote, when the inhab- 
itants were giving expression to their joy on the departure of the 
British troops. Already the name of Clinton was honorably 
identified with military and civic life in America, officers of his 
family having served in the French and Revolutionary wars, and 
associated their names with the capture of Fort Frontenac, with 
the Indian battles in the valley of the Mohawk, with the sur- 
render of Cornwallis, and subsequently with the government of 
the state. Public duty, courage, and self-sacrifice, were house- 
hold words in the settlement where his childhood was passed ; 
historical events were his nursery tales : and when, having ex- 
hausted the educational privileges of his native county and passed 
some months at the College of New Jersey, he sought for aca- 
demic culture in the metropolis of his own state, the application 
was the signal for recombining the apparatus of learning dis- 
persed by war, and baptizing anew the University of New York 
with the title of an emancipated country. With the advent of 



DE WITT CLINTON. 207 

De Witt Clinton as a pupil, the fortunes of King's, now Colum- 
bia, College revived ; and it might seem prophetic of his future 
relation to the cause of learning and civil advancement, that he 
was the first graduate of that institution after it became American 
both in name and in principles. 

It has been suggested that the germs of political science were 
planted in Clinton's mind by the lectures of Dr. Kemp, his col- 
lege preceptor ; but they were developed by the exigencies and 
opportunities of his subsequent career. He had scarcely com- 
pleted his law studies, w^hen the accidental death of his brother, 
who was private secretary to Governor Clinton, led to his accept- 
ance of the office. Thus early was he initiated as a political stu- 
dent. To promote his uncle's reelection, he became a writer for 
the journals of the day, and soon acquired rare power and readi- 
ness in that capacity. He reported the debates of the convention 
that discussed the new constitution ; and while a mere youth, by 
the demands upon his recognized ability and the promise of his 
character, he became the chief of a volunteer military corps, and 
a harbor commissioner. When his kinsman was defeated at the 
polls, and the Federal party triumphed, there was a pause in his 
official life, during which his love of the natural sciences found 
scope ; but no sooner did his own party predominate, than he was 
elected successively state representative and senator, United 
States senator, mayor of the city and governor of the state of 
New York — posts whose functions were then more important 
and responsible than at present. The mere outline of his official 
honors gives no idea of what he made the career of a public ser- 
vant. In each station he exhibited a vigor of action, a wise pol- 
ity, and a social influence, quite original and of rare efficiency ; 
in each he illustrated the prerogatives of statesmanship, — in 
congressional debate winning from his noble rival, Gouverneur 
Morris, an honest admiration that rose above the virulence of 
partisan dislike ; in municipal rule, by memorable judicial decis- 
ions and the courageous exercise of his magistracy, eliciting the 
ardent praise of the most eminent jurists, and the spontaneous 
trust of his fellow-citizens. Diplomatic skill, philosophical 
insight, heroic purpose, generous aims, and legal acumen, were 
so manifest in his administration of every office, however limited 



208 THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST. 

or temporary its character, as to demonstrate that, under free 
institutions, it is not the rank but the use of office ^Yhich makes 
it illustrious. In support of this view we might cite his new 
inspection of wheat, that soon raised its market value, his speech 
against war with Spain, his negotiations with the French and 
English men-of-war in the waters of New York to preserve neu- 
trality, his condemnation of the turbulent and highly connected 
students tried before him, his repeal of the acts intolerant to 
Catholics, the charters he secured for the Fur Company, the 
Academy of Arts, and the Manumission Society, his moral courage 
in repudiating an act intended to mar the freedom of debate, his 
personal devotion to the establishment of the first free school, and 
his exertions in rescuing from unhallowed neglect the bones of 
the prison-ship martyrs. 

It is one of the penalties exacted by official life that its votary 
is obliged to expend the highest gifts of his nature upon objects 
which, however important as parts of a series, leave few perma- 
nent memorials. The artist or the author bequeaths a picture, 
statue, or book, in which are embodied his aspirations and the 
spirit he was of; but the active intelligence of the statesman is 
usually so exclusively devoted to administrative duties, as to 
leave no time for the finished record of his genius. The life that 
occupied so large a space in the public eye, the name that was 
on every lip, seems to pass away with the funeral pageant and 
the tearful eulogy. In the archives of an historical society the 
curious explorer finds in a fragmentary shape the writings which, 
a few years before, were the charts of opinion over which fiery 
partisans wrangled and ardent champions exulted. The docu- 
mentary history of De Witt Clinton's life bears ample evidence 
of his varied learning, his large discourse of reason, his broad 
views, and his unwearied activity. It comprises orations before 
philosophical and benevolent societies, speeches, reports, letters, 
journals, and messages to the legislature. It attests facility as a 
writer, versatile knowledge, and earnestness of purpose, embracing 
discussions of questions of policy, data for the naturalist and 
historian, and systematic digests of studies in almost every depart- 
ment of scientific, literary, and political inquiry. Much of the 
significance of these papers is, however, lost, through the progress 



DE WITT CLINTON. 209 

of events and the diffusion of knowledge. Orators have multiplied 
since his day, and many able legislators have won reputation in 
the same fields ; yet these incidental writings are valuable for 
reference, and interesting as the literary exposition of a noble 
character. The Address before the Philosophical Society, the 
Discourse on the Iroquois, and the Letters of Hibernicus, are 
valuable illustrations of the habits of research, the intellectual 
tastes, the powers of observation, and the impressive style, of a man 
whose life was mainly occupied with executive duties, and whose 
fame is eminently that of a practical statesman. It is delightful 
to cite, after the lapse of fifty years, his eloquent defence of 
literature and science as elements of a wise policy, — to hear him 
glory in the memories of Hunter and Burnett, the educated 
provincial governors of his native state, advocate the need of a 
knowledge of the past in order to reap the fruits of the present, 
and designate the advantages, both natural and civil, offered in 
this country to the votary of science and letters. It is equally 
pleasing to follow his ethnological investigations of the savage 
tribe that once possessed the fair domain around him, and to share 
the patriotic zest with which he examines its soil, forests, and 
waters, to fix the nomenclature of their varied products. He 
anticipated^ by hints of projects such as De Foe's famous essay 
bequeathed to posterity, many of the subsequent victories of prac- 
tical science, when he declared that '' here the hand of art will 
change the face of the universe, and the prejudices of country 
will vanish before the talisman of merit;" that " it will not be 
debated whether hills shall be perforated, but whether the Alps 
and the Andes shall be levelled ; not whether sterile fields shall 
be fertilized, but whether the deserts of Africa shall feel the 
power of cultivation; not whether rivers shall be joined, but 
whether the Caspian shall see the Mediterranean, and the waves 
of the Pacific shall lave the Atlantic shores." 

The account of his exploration of Western New York, which 
originally appeared in one of the journals of the day, offers a 
wonderful contrast to our familiar experience. Then, to use his 
own language, " the stage-driver was a leading beau, and the 
keeper of .a turnpike-gate a man of consequence." Our three 
hours' trip from New York to Albany was a voyage, occupying 
18* 



210 THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST. 

ten times that period. At Albany stores were laid in, and each 
member of the commission provided himself with a blanket, as 
caravans, in our time, are equipped at St. Louis for an expedition 
to the Rocky Mountains. Here they breakfast at a toll-keeper's, 
there they dine on cold ham at an isolated farm-house ; now they 
mount a baggage-wagon, and now take to a boat too small to 
admit of sleeping accommodations, which leads them constantly 
to regret their " unfortunate neglect to provide marquees and 
camp-stools ; " and more than six weeks are occupied in a journey 
which now does not consume as many days. Yet the charm of 
patient observation, the enjoyment of nature, and the gleanings 
of knowledge, caused what, in our locomotive era, would seem a 
tedious pilgrimage, to be fraught with a pleasure and advantage 
of which our flying tourists over modern railways never dream. 
We perceive by the comparison that what has been gained m 
speed is often lost in rational entertainment. The traveller who 
leaves New York in the morning, to sleep at night under the 
roar of Niagara, has gathered nothing in the magical transit but 
dust, fatigue, and the risk of destruction ; while, in that deliberate 
progress of the canal enthusiast, not a phase of the landscape, not 
an historical association, not a fruit, mineral, or flower, was lost 
to his view. He recognizes the benign provision of Nature for 
sugar, so fo,r from the tropics, by the sap of the maple ; and for 
salt, at such a distance from the ocean, by the lakes that hold it 
in solution near Syracuse. At Geddesburg he recalls the valor 
of the Iroquois, and the pious zeal of the Jesuits ; at Seneca Lake 
he watches a bald-eagle chasing an osprey, who lets his captive 
drop to be grasped in the talons of the king of birds ; the fields 
near Aurora cheer him with the harvests of the " finest wheat 
country in the world." At one place he is regaled with salmon, 
at another with fruit, peculiar in flavor to each locality ; at one 
moment he pauses to shoot a bittern, and at another to examine 
an old fortification. The capers and poppies in a garden, the 
mandrakes and thistles in a brake, the blue-jays and woodpeckers 
of the grove, the bullet-marks in the rafters of Fort Niagara, 
tokens of the siege under Sir William Johnson, the boneset of 
the swamp, a certain remedy for the local fever, a Yankee explor- 
ing the country for lands, the croaking of the bull-frog and the 



DE WITT CLINTON. 211 

gleam of the fire-flj, Indian men spearing for fish, and girls 
making wampum, — these, and innumerable other scenes and 
objects, lure him into the romantic vistas of tradition or the beau- 
tiful domain of natural science ; and everywhere he is inspired 
by the patriotic survey to announce the as yet unrecorded promise 
of the soil, and to exult in the limitless destiny of its people. If 
there is a striking diversity between the population and facilities 
of travel in this region as known to us and as described by him, 
there is in other points a not less remarkable identity. Rochester 
is now famed as the source of one of the most prolific superstitions 
of the age ; and forty years ago there resided at Crooked Lake 
Jemima Wilkinson, whose followers believed her the Saviour 
incarnate. Clinton describes her equipage, — " a plain coach 
with leather curtains, the back inscribed with her initials and a 
star." The orchards, poultry, corn-fields, grist-mills, noted by 
him, still characterize the region, and are indefinitely multiplied. 
The ornithologist, however, would miss whole species of birds, 
and the richly- veined woods must be sought in less civilized dis- 
tricts. The prosperous future, which the various products of this 
district foretold, has been more than realized ; with each succes- 
sive improvement in the means of communication, villages have 
swelled to cities ; barges and freight-cars with lumber and flour 
have crowded the streams and rails leading to the metropolis ; 
and, in the midst of its rural beauty and gemmed with peerless 
lakes, the whole region has, according to his prescient conviction, 
annually increased in commerce, population, and refinement. 

A more noble domain, indeed, wherein to exercise such admin- 
istrative genius, can scarcely be imagined than the State of New 
York. In its diversities of surface, water, scenery, and climate, 
it may be regarded more than any other member of the confeder- 
acy as typical of the whole Union. The artist, the topographer, 
the man of science, and the agriculturist, can find within its limits 
all that is most characteristic of the entire country. In historical 
incident, variety of immigrant races, and rapid development, it is 
equally a representative state. There spreads the luxuriant 
Mohawk valley, whose verdant slopes, even when covered with 
frost, the experienced eye of Washington selected for purchase as 
the best of agricultural tracts. There were the famed hunting- 



212 THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST. 

grounds of the Six Nations, the colonial outposts of the fur- 
trade, the vicinity of Frontenac's sway, and the Canada wars, 
the scenes of Andre's capture, and Burgoyne's surrender. There 
the very names of forts embalm the fame of heroes. There lived 
the largest manorial proprietors, and not a few of the most emi- 
nent Revolutionary statesmen. There Fulton's great invention 
was realized ; there flows the most beautiful of our rivers, towers 
the grandest mountain-range, and expand the most picturesque 
lakes ; there thunders the sublimest cataract on earth, and gush 
the most salubrious spas ; while on the seaboard is the emporium 
of the Western world. 

A poet has apostrophized North America, with no less truth' 
than beauty, as " land of the many waters ; " and a glance at the 
map of New York will indicate their felicitous distribution within 
her limits. This element is the natural and primitive means of 
intercommunication. For centuries it had borne the aborigines 
in their frail canoes, and afterwards the trader, the soldier, the 
missionary, and the emigrant, in their batteaux ; and, when arrived 
at a terminus, they carried these light transports over leagues of 
portage, again to launch them on lake and river. Fourteen years 
of Clinton's life were assiduously devoted to his favorite project 
of uniting these bodies of water. He was the advocate, the memo- 
rialist, the topographer, and financier, of the vast enterprise, and 
accomplished it, by his wisdom and intrepidity, without the slight- 
est pecuniary advantage, and in the face of innumerable obstacles. 
Its consummation was one of the greatest festivals sacred to a 
triumph of the arts of peace ever celebrated on this continent. 
The impulse it gave to commercial and agricultural prosperity 
continues to this hour. It was the foundation of all that makes 
the city and state of New York preeminent ; and, when recently 
a thousand American citizens sailed up the Mississippi, to com- 
memorate its alliance with the Atlantic, the ease and rapidity of 
the transit, and the spectacle of virgin civilization thus created, 
were but a new act in the grand drama of national development, 
whose opening scene occurred twenty-seven years before, when 
the waters of Lake Erie blended with those of the Hudson. 

The immense bodies of inland water, and the remarkable fact 
that the Hudson river, unlike other Atlantic streams south of it, 



DE WITT CLINTON. 213 

flows unimpeded, early impressed Clinton with the natural means 
of intercourse destined to connect the seaboard of New York with 
the vast agricultural districts of the interior. He saw her peer- 
less river enter the Highlands only to meet, ^ hundred and sixty 
miles beyond, another stream, which flowed within a compara- 
tively short distance from the great chain of lakes. The very 
existence of these inland seas, and the obvious possibility of unit- 
ing them with the ocean, suggested to his comprehensive mind a 
new idea of the destiny of the whole country. Within a few 
years an ingenious geographer has pointed out, with singular 
acumen, the relation of his science to history, and has demon- 
strated, by a theory not less philosophical than poetic, that the 
disposition of land and water in various parts of the globe pre- 
determines the human development of each region. The copious 
civilization of Europe is thus traceable to the numerous facilities 
of approach that distinguish it from Africa, which still remains 
but partially explored. The lakes in America prophesied to the* 
far-reaching vision of Clinton her future progress. He perceived, 
more clearly than any of his contemporaries, that her develop- 
ment depended upon facilities of intercourse and communication. 
He beheld, with intuitive wisdom, the extraordinary provision for 
this end, in the succession of lake and river, extending, like a 
broad silver tissue, from the ocean far through the land, thus- 
brmging the products of foreign climes within reach of the lone 
emigrant in the heart of the continent, and the staples of those 
midland valleys to freight the ships of her seaports. He felt 
that the state of all others to practically demonstrate this great 
fact was that with whose interests he was intrusted. It was rot 
n.s a theorist, but as a utilitarian, in the best sense, that he advo- 
cated the union by canal of the waters of Lake Erie with those of 
the Hudson. The patriotic scheme was fraught with issues of which 
even he never di-eamed. It was applying, on a limited scale, in 
the sight of a people whose enterprise is boundless in every direc- 
tion clearly proved to be availing, a principle which may be truly 
declared the vital element of our civic growth. It was giving 
tangible evidence of the creative power incident to locomotion. 
It was yielding the absolute evidence then required to convince 
the less far-sighted multitude that access was the grand secret of 



214 THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST. 

increased value, that exchange of products was the touchstone of 
wealth, and that the iron, wood, grain, fruit, and other abundant 
resources of the interior, could acquire their real value only 
through facilities of transportation. Simple as these truths 
appear now, they were widely ignored then ; and not a few 
opponents of Clinton predicted that, even if he did succeed 
in having flour conveyed from what was then called the "Far 
West" to the metropolis, at a small expense of time and money, 
the grass would grow in the streets of New York. The political 
economists of his day were thus converted into enemies of a sys- 
tem which, from that hour, has continued to guide to prosperous 
issues every latent source of wealth throughout the country. The 
battle with ignorance and prejudice, w^hich Clinton and his friends 
waged, resulted in more than a local triumph and individual 
renown. It established a great precedent, offered a prolific exam- 
ple, and gave permanent impulse and direction to the public spirit' 
of the community. The canal is now, in a great measure, super- 
seded by the railway ; the traveller sometimes finds them side by 
side, and, as he glances from the sluggish stream and creeping 
barge to the whirling cars, and thence to the telegraph-wire, he 
witnesses only the more perfect development of that great scheme 
by which Clinton, according to the limited means, and against the 
inveterate prejudices, of his day, sought to bring the distant near, 
and to render homogeneous and mutually helpful the activity of 
a single state, and, by that successful experiment, indicated the 
process Avhereby the whole confederacy should be rendered one 
in interest, in enterprise, and in sentiment. 

Before the canal policy was realized, we are told by its great 
advocate that ' ' the expense of conveying a barrel of flour by land 
to Albany, from the country above Cayuga Lake, was more than 
twice as much as the cost of transportation from New York to 
Liverpool;" and the correctness of his financial anticipations 
was verified by the first year's experiment, even before the com- 
pletion of the enterprise, when in his message to the legislature 
he announced that "the income of the canal fund, when added 
to the tolls, exceeded the interest on the cost of the canal by 
nearly four hundred thousand dollars." Few, however, of the 
restless excursionists that now crowd our cars and steamboats. 



DE WITT CLINTON. 215 

would respond to liis praise of this means of transportation when 
used for travel. His notion of a journey, we have seen, differed 
essentially from that now in vogue, which seems to aim chiefly at 
the annihilation of space. To a philosophic mind, notwithstand- 
ing, his views will not appear irrational, when he declares that, 
fifty miles a day, '• without a jolt," is his ideal of a tour, — the 
time to be divided between observing, and, when there is no inter- 
est in the scenery, reading and conversation. "I believe," he 
adds, "that cheaper or more commodious travelling cannot be 
found." 

The tendency of public life, in this country, is to merge states- 
manship in politics. The broad views and high aims of the 
fathers of the republic have but occasionally inspired modern 
leaders of party. Sagacity, oftener than comprehensiveness, 
adroitness in the use of temporary expedients, rather than appre- 
ciation of general principles, has secured to them casual success : 
but they could have bequeathed hallowed memories only through 
identity with grand and progressive ideas. At the head of the 
second generation of great public men stands De Witt Clinton. 
His conception of the duty and the privilege of oJ05ce had in it 
somewhat of the enlarged and disinterested spirit which endears 
the names of Washington, Franklin, and Hamilton, and the rest 
of that noble brotherhood, whose reach of thought and tone of 
action were on a scale commensurate with the national life, of 
whose genius they were the legitimate guardians. Not only in 
the extent and wisdom of his projects, and the intelligent zeal of 
his administration, was Clinton the worthy successor of that ex- 
traordinary race of patriots. His endowments, tastes, and habits, 
were those of a republican statesman. Instead of giving his ener- 
gies to organizing cliques, and political machinery, he meditated 
extensive plans for the advancement of the state, and with daunt- 
less industry sought their realization. The authentic lore of 
history and philosophy, and not the ephemeral chart of a news- 
paper, disciplined his mind. By virtue of heroic self-reliance, 
not through the artifices of cunning, he pursued his objects ; his 
claims were based on self-respect ; the force of intelligence, and 
not the blandishments of the courtier, gave eloquence to his 
appeals ; and moral energy was his method of achievement. 



216 THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST. 

Like Scott and Webster, he began to labor at da^Yn ; like Gouver- 
neur Morris, lie preferred the intellectual refreshment of conver- 
sation to the idle pastime of a game of hazard. In diction, in 
manner, and in association, there was obviously the innate dignity 
of a man conscious of lofty purposes and official responsibility. 
His foible was pride, not vanity ; the sense of beauty was less cul- 
tivated than acuteness of w^it ; and imagination was secondary to 
good sense. He furnished his mind for the wise treatment of 
affairs by assiduous and universal reading, by earnest thought, and 
keen observation. Thus the whole nature of the man was trained 
for practical efficiency ; and he habitually looked above and 
beyond the limits of incidental questions, to the essential welfare 
of the state. His confidence in himself and his measures, accord- 
ingly, was justified by more enduring testimony than the caprices 
of popular favor. He saw before and after. His private tastes 
had the same character. He was a naturalist, but no connois- 
seur ; preferred satire to poetry, fact to fiction, law to speculation. 
His journeys were inspired, not by the zest of adventure, but 
by the love of knowledge ; his studies were directed, not to the 
gratification of a vague curiosity, but to the acquirement of 
valuable truth. His talent w^as executive ; his ambition, to open 
new avenues of prosperity, to found expansive institutions, to 
develop natural resources, to bring out the latent powers of 
mind and matter, of nature and society, and to give a wise and 
effective direction to the elements of national prosperity. Like 
all benefactors whose memories survive, he worked by the 
light of philosophy ; like all artists whose ideas find perma- 
nent shape, he never lost sight of general effect while absorbed in 
details. 

He thus combined the qualities which illustrate public and 
official daty in accordance with the genius of our institutions. 
Examined as a whole, his character is of a kind which signally 
meets the wants and honors the suffrages of the people. How 
often, during the few years that have elapsed since his decease, 
has the country suffered from the lack of integrity, firmness, 
devotion, and intelligence, like his, in her national and municipal 
affairs- ! The method of his statesmanship was thoroughly Amer- 
ican, — instinct with republican courage and directness, above 



DE WITT CLINTON. 217 

considerations of gain, mainly cognizant of prospective good, and 
undisturbed by the dictum of faction. His nature was cast in a 
Roman, not a Jesuitical, mould. As became a priest of freedom, 
he was inspired by the practical sense of a Franklin and the 
dauntless will of a Loyola, and not by the calculating shrewdness 
of a Talleyrand or the visionary expedients of a Necker. The 
original idea of the canal policy has been ascribed to others ; and, 
as in every similar instance of invention and of enterprise, many 
honored names are identified with the conception and the progress 
of the undertaking — capitalists, engineers, rhetoricians, and 
patriots. But history shows that the great requisite for such 
achievements is the indomitable perseverance of men endowed with 
the genius or vested with the authority to insure success. It was 
this that crowned Fulton's weary years of experiment with tri- 
umph in the application of steam to navigation, and enabled 
Morse to prove his theory, at last, by the construction of an elec- 
tric telegraph from the Capitol where an appropriation was so 
long withheld. In form, discourse, and feature, Clinton bore the 
impress of his intrinsic character, noble, fearless, and determined. 
His stature and biow instantly conveyed the idea of moral dig- 
nity ; his expression wore the severity of a man of thought, yet, 
in more genial moods, expanded with benign recognition or mirth- 
ful humor ; in his dark eye beamed a keen intelligence, and in his 
smile a winning grace. In social life he was upright and faithful ; 
in his home, kind and attractive ; and his faculties were unim- 
paired and active within a few moments of his death. The 
austerity of reflection in his hours of respite from labor was 
tempered by the amenities of love and taste ; and he thus repre- 
sented, in manners and person, the union of strong volition, 
generous sentiment, and vivid intelligence. 

The slow appreciation of Clinton's character is a striking 
evidence of the narrow views of mere politicians. That a legis- 
lator should preside over a philosophical society, correspond with 
foreign savans. describe new species of fish, birds, and grain, and 
leave the routine of public afiairs to explore the resources of 
nature, was an incongruity they could neither understand nor 
tolerate. The distinction of an empty civic title they estimated, 
but the celebrity arising from the discovery of a wild farinaceous 
19 



218 THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST. 

product in New York, before thought indigenous only on the 
banks of the Caspian, was beyond their comprehension. That 
philosophy and letters constituted an essential part of the culture 
of a statesman, was a truth they ignored ; and that it was possible 
to execute the behests of the people, and maintain, at the same 
time, the individuality and self-respect of an accomplished and 
honest citizen, was a theory which the radicals of both parties 
hesitated to accept. It is for this very reason, however, that the 
example of Clinton was invaluable as a precedent. He raised the 
standard of public life, and enlarged the boundaries of official 
utility. He illustrated, with peculiar emphasis, the value of lib- 
eral education, mental discipline, and dignity of character, in the 
sphere of republican office ; and left imposing landmarks in the 
path of ambition, which survive the suffrage of his own and the 
criticism of the adverse party. 

He was, indeed, one of that rare and invaluable class of men 
who cherish a disinterested love of knowledge for its own sake, 
and keep habitual vigil at its shrine. An indefatigable purveyor, 
he sought the facts of nature as the only reliable basis for human 
well-being. The universe was to him a treasury of arcana^ in 
which laws of vast practical utility, and resources of uniraagined 
worth, await the earnest inquirer. To bring these latent means 
into relation with the needs and capacities of mankind was in his 
view the great problem of life. The scope of his enterprise 
included nature, government, and society ; and no inference was 
too broad or detail too insignificant for the grasp of his mind. 
Thus, at one time, we find him announcing the discovery of a 
new kind of wheat, and, at another, bringing a Dutch scholar 
from an obscure village to translate the early archives of his 
native state ; now watching a mullein-stalk to verify the deposit 
of young bees in its seed-vessels, and now broaching a plan for 
the defence of the city when threatened with invasion ; noting the 
minerals and trees of the interior, the history of the Iroquois, and 
the '' melancholy notes of the loon," advocating a vast project 
for inland navigation, and describing the various species of wood 
indigenous to the soil. From a charitable institution to a fossil, 
and from a man of genius to the plumage of a kingfisher, all that 
could increase the sum of recorded knowledge, or give scope to 



DEWITTCLINTON. 219 

human ability, he earnestly recognized. It is this singular union 
of the naturalist and statesman which gives to his character a 
stamp of distinctive beauty. It was not as associated with the 
tactics of party, but as the almoner of a higher economy, that he 
regarded the functions of a ruler. To discover and promote all 
that ministers to the welfare of the state was, in his regard, the 
genius of administration. He sought to build up a noble com- 
monwealth, rather than the power of faction. The elements of 
knowledge and philanthropy he considered as vital, and accord- 
ingly originated and sustained, as primary objects, educational, 
economical and benevolent institutions, which still bear gracious 
witness to his memory. His mind was, however, of too contem- 
plative a tone to be on the alert for occasions to conciliate oppo- 
nents ; his manly integrity precluded resort to the arts of the 
demagogue. He thought too much to be minutely vigilant of the 
wayward current of popularity, and was too much absorbed in 
great undertakings to '' catch the nearest way '^ to the favor of 
the multitude. The soundness of his intellectual growth and 
moral energy may be inferred from the rectitude and industry of 
his college life, wherein the youth prefigured the man. His acqui- 
sitions were gradual, but thorough ; and, while an undergraduate, 
he drew up a masterly address to the regents, in behalf of his 
fellow-students. He was remarkably superior to selfish considera- 
tions, invariably devoting his official revenue to promoting the 
influence of whatever station he filled, and contributing largely 
from his private purse to science, hospitality, and charity. He 
was indifferent to emolument, but zealous for usefulness and 
honor. More adroit tacticians and political courtiers superseded 
him in office ; but their very names are now forgotten, except 
when recalled as associated with his ; while the measures they 
ridiculed, and the achievements they deemed chimerical, are 
indissolubly wrought into the local features and the civic life of 
the country. 

It would be now an ungracious task to review the forms of 
political animosity, which, like a swarm of venomous insects, 
hung around the career of this brave citizen. When we compare 
the incidental annoyance with the ultimate triumph, the struggle 
with the victory, we are tempted to exclaim, with the hero of 



220 THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST. 

that lake whose tide he married to the sea, "There is glorj 
enough," and, in a like generous spirit, to pass unrecorded the 
mean arts of faction and the outrages of party hatred. The his- 
tory of Clinton's great achievement is like that of every under- 
taking that is in advance of the time. It is fortunate that in men 
of true genius the will is usually as strong as the aim is original, 
and that perseverance goes hand in hand with invention. It is 
remarkable that even Jefferson thought the governor of New 
YorS a century beyond his age in the design he cherished. To 
the scepticism of intelligent friends was united the bitter opposi- 
tion of partisan foes. Indignities, gross slanders, violent news- 
paper attacks, personal disrespect, and all the base weapons of 
sectional jealousy, were employed in vain. The thunders of 
Tammany Hall proved innocuous ; satirical pamphlets only 
excited equally caustic replies ; his failure as a presidential can- 
didate, and his unjust removal from the office of canal commis- 
sioner, only drew more strongly towards him the few who appre- 
ciated his abilities and shared his projects. He was offered the 
secretaryship of state by a chief magistrate who subsequently, at 
the festive board of the opposition, proposed the health of Clinton 
as a public benefactor. He retreated from official toil to his 
library, and knew how to soothe the wounds inflicted by reckless 
ignorance with the balm of literature and science. A man who 
can forget personal grievances over the pages of Linngeus or 
Bacon is above the need of sympathy. His courtesy was never 
laid aside, even when the poisoned shafts of detraction were flying 
thickly around him, nor his dignity invaded while the insolent 
shout of revengeful triumph filled the air. He was conscious of 
a mission above the spoils of office. The social consideration he 
enjoyed more than atoned for the casual loss of political distinc- 
tion ; foreigners of renown sought his dwelling ; men of science 
were his favorite companions, books his most reliable consola- 
tion; and the great scheme he so long advocated, with the 
labor incident to its progress and consummation, gave genial 
employment to all his faculties. Now that the watchwords of 
party are forgotten, and the ravings of faction have died away, 
his noble presence stands forth in bold relief, on the historical 
canvas of that era, as the pioneer of the genius of communica- 



DEWITTCLINTON. 221 

tion, whose magic touch has already filled with civilized life the 
boundless valleys of the West, then an untracked forest ; as 
the Columbus of national improvement, and the man who most 
effectually anticipated the spirit of the age, and gave it executive 
illustration. 

19* 



THE VOCALIST 

JENNY LIND. 



The Life of the North is to us a fresh revelation ; and, bj a 
striking coincidence , one after another of its phases have come 
upon our transatlantic vision in rapid succession. Previously, 
Swedenborg, Charles XII., and Linnaeus, were the names most 
gratefully associated with that region. To many Americans, Thor- 
waldsen was the only name associated with art, but a few years 
since ; and to those who have visited Rome, the benign and ven- 
erable man is a vivid and pleasing reminiscence, appropriate to 
the idea of his grand apostolic figures, and the affectionate honor 
in which his native Denmark holds the memory of its . noble 
sculptor. But with a Norwegian violinist fairly commenced our 
popular knowledge of the genius of Northern Europe. The play 
of the wind through her forest pines, the glint of lier frozen 
streams, the tenderness of her households, and the solemnity of 
her faith, seemed to breathe in the wizard tones of his instru- 
ment. Then the spirit of her literature began slowly to win its 
gentle but impressive way to the American heart. Longfellow's 
translation of Bishop Tegner's '■ Children of the Lord's Supper," 
with the graphic introduction descriptive of 'rural life in Sweden, 
touched the same chord in New England breasts that had 
vibrated to the religious pathos of Bryant. Dana, and Hawthorne ; 
while not a few readers became simultaneously aware of a brave 
Danish poet, recently follovred to the tomb by the people of Co- 
penhagen, with every token of national grief The dramas of 



JENNY LI ND. 223 

(Ehlenschlager, from their union of familiar expression with the 
deepest feeling, though but partially known in this country, awa- 
kened both curiosity and interest. Then, too, came to us the 
domestic novels of Miss Bremer, portraying so heartily the life 
of home in Sweden, and appealing to the most universal sympa- 
thies of our people. Finally, Hans Andersen's delicious story- 
books, veiling such fine imaginative powers under the guise of the 
utmost simplicity, raised up for him scores of juvenile admirers, 
while children of a larger growth enjoyed the originality of his 
fictions with equal zest, as the offspring of rare human sympathy 
and original invention. The pictures wafted to our shores by the 
late revolutionary exigencies of the Continent have often yielded 
glimpses of northern scenery. Norwegian forests, skies, and 
mountains, attracted the eye at the Dusseldorf gallery ; and thus, 
through both art and literature, the simple, earnest, and poetic 
features of life in the North were brought within the range of 
our consciousness. It developed unimagined affinities with our 
own; and, as it were, to complete and consecrate the revelation, 
we heard the vocal genius of Northern Europe — the Swedish 
nightingale, Jenny Lind. 

Stockholm is justly regarded as the most elegant city of North- 
ern Europe. It is situated at the junction of the lake Malar 
with an inlet of the Baltic. Although usually described as 
founded on seven isles, it is, in point of fact, mainly situated on 
three; the smallest and most central having been the original 
site, and still constituting the most populous and active section. 
The irregularity of its form, and the blending of land and water, 
render the appearance of the city remarkably picturesque. From 
the elevated points, besides the various buildings, craft of all 
kinds in motion and at anchor, numerous bridges and a fine back- 
ground of mountains are discernible, and combine to form a beau- 
tiful panorama. The royal palace is exceeded in magnificence 
only by that of Versailles. 

From an unpretending edifice in one of the by-streets of the 
city of Stockholm, in Sweden, a quarter of a century ago, a troop 
of children might have been seen to emerge, at noon, and break 
the silence that at other hours invested the place, with the lively 
chat and quick laughter natural to emancipated scholars. In a 



224 THE VOCALIST. 

few moments they dispersed to their several homes, and early the 
next day were again visible, one by one, disappearing, with a 
more subdued bearing, within the portal of the humble domicile. 

Towards the seminary, on a pleasant day, there moved rapidly 
the carriage of one of those useful, though unrecognized beings, 
who seem born to appreciate the gifts which God so liberally dis- 
penses, but which the insensibility and selfishness of mankind, in 
general, permit to languish in obscurity until a fortunate circum- 
stance brings them to light. Some time previous, the good lady, 
in passing the school, had been struck with the beauty of a child's 
voice that rose blithely from the dwelling. She was induced to 
alight and enter ; and her astonishment was only increased upon 
discovering that this cheerful song came from a diminutive girl, 
busied in arranging the schoolroom, during a temporary recess. 
She learned that this maiden was the daughter of the schoolmis- 
tress ; and the somewhat restricted air of homely comfort visible 
in the establishment, and the tinge of severity in the manners of 
the mother, contrasted forcibly in the lady's imagination with the 
apparently instinctive soaring of the child's spirit into the atmos- 
phere of song, from her dim and formal surroundings, as the 
skylark lifts itself from a lowly nest among the dark weeds up to 
the crystal heavens. It was a sweet illustration of the law of 
compensation. 

The air the child was singing, as she busied herself about the 
room, was a simple native strain, quite familiar, and by no means 
difficult of execution ; it was the quality of the voice, the natural 
flow of the notes, the apparent ease, grace, and earnest sweetness 
of the little songstress, that gained the visitor's ear and heart. 
And now she had come to urge upon the parents the duty of 
aifording every encouragement to develop a gift so rare and beau- 
tiful ; she expressed her conviction that the child was born for a 
musical artist, and destined not only to redeem her parents from 
want, but to do honor to her country. This impression was 
deepened when she learned that this musical tendency manifested 
itself as early as the age of three, and that the little girl had long 
awakened the wonder of the family by repeating accurately even 
intricate airs, after having heard them but once : that she had 
thus sung habitually, spontaneously, and seemed to find of 



JENNY LIND. 225 

her own volition a peculiar consolation in the act for the dry 
routine of her life, though from without not a single circum- 
stance gave any impulse or direction to this vocal endowment. 

She exhibited also to the just perception of Madame Lund- 
berg, herself a celebrated Swedish actress, as well as a benevo- 
lent woman, the usual conditions of genius, in backward physical 
growth, precocious mental vigor, and mature sensibilities. The 
latter, indeed, were so active, that her mother, and even her kind 
adviser, doubted if she possessed sufficient energy of charac- 
ter for so trying a profession as that of an artist ; and this con- 
sideration, added to the prejudice of the parents against a public, 
and especially a theatrical career, for a time chilled the hopes 
of the enthusiastic patroness. At length, however, their consent 
was obtained that the experiment should be tried, and the diffi- 
dent little girl, only accustomed to domestic privacy, but with a 
new and strange hope wildly fluttering in her bosom, was taken 
to Croelius, a veteran music-master of Stockholm, who was so 
delighted with her rare promise that one day he led her to the 
house of Count Pucke, then director of the court theatre. Her 
reception, however, did not correspond with the old man's 
desires : for the nobleman coldly inquired what he was expected 
to do with such a child. It must be confessed that the absence 
of beauty and size did not, at the first glance, create any high 
anticipations in behalf of the demure maiden. Croelius, though 
disappointed, was quite undismayed : he entreated the director to 
hear her sing, and declared his purpose to teach her gratuitously, 
if he could in no other way secure the cultivation of her voice 
and talents. This earnestness induced the count to listen with 
attention and candor ; and the instant she had finished, he 
exclaimed, " She shall have all the advantages of the Stockholm 
Academy ! " Such was Jenny Lind's initiation into the life of 
an artist. 

She now began regularly to appear on the stage, and was soon 
an adept in juvenile parts. She proved widely attractive in 
vaudevilles, which were written expressly for her; and it is 
remarkable that the charm did not lie so much in the precocious 
intelligence, as in the singular geniality, of the little actress. 
Nature thus early asserted her dominion. There was an indefin- 



226 T II E V C A L I S T . 

able human interest, a certain original vein, that universally sur- 
prised and fascinated, while it took from the child the ecl'it of a 
mere infant phenomenon, by bringing her from the domain of 
vulgar wonder into the range of that refined sympathy, one touch 
of which " makes the w^hole w^orld kin." In a year Croelius 
reluctantly gave up his pupil to Berg, who to kindred zeal 
united far more energy : and by him she was inducted thoroughly 
into the elements of her art. 

Probation is quite as essential. to the true development of art 
as encouragement. The eager, impassioned, excitable tempera- 
ment needs to be chastened, the recklessness of self-confidence 
awed, and that sublime patience induced through which reliable 
and tranquil energy takes the place of casual and unsustained 
activity. By nature Jenny Lind was thoughtful and earnest, 
disposed to silence, and instinctively reserved : while the influence 
of her early home was to subdue far more than to exhilarate. 
The change in her mode of life and prospects was so unexpected, 
her success as a juvenile prodigy so brilliant, and the universal 
social favor she enjoyed, on account of the winsome amiability of 
her character, so fitted to elate a youthful heart, that we cannot 
but regard it as one of the many providential events of her 
career, that just at the critical moment w^hen the child w^as losing 
herself in the maiden, and nature and education were ultimately 
shaping her artistic powers, an unexpected impediment was 
allowed to check her already too rapid advancement; and a 
pause, sad enough at the time, but fraught with enduring bene- 
fit, gave her occasion to discipline and elevate her soul, renew her 
overtasked energies, and plume her wings for flights more sus- 
tained and lofty. 

Yet. while thus aware of the utility of her trial, we can easily 
imao^ine its bitterness. The loss of a srift of nature throuo;h 
which a human being has learned to find both the solace and the 
inspiration of existence, upon which the dearest hopes were 
founded, and by which the most glorious triumphs were achieved, 
is one of those griefs few can realize. RaphaeFs gentle heart 
bled when feebleness unnerved the hand that guided the pencil to 
such lovely issues, and big tears rolled down Scott's manly cheek 
when he strove in vain to go on with his latest composition. How 



JENNY LIND. 227 

desolate then must that young aspirant for the honor and the 
delights of the vocal art have felt ^hen suddenly deprived of her 
voice ! The dream of her youth was broken in a moment. The 
charm of her being faded like a mist ; and the star of hope, that 
had thus far beamed serenely on her path, grew dim in the cold 
twilight of disappointment, keen, entire, and apparently irremedi- 
able. This painful condition was aggravated by the fact that 
her age now rendered it out of the question to perform childish 
parts, while it did not authorize those of a mature character. 

The circumstances, too, of her failure were singularly trying. 
She was announced to appear as Agatha in Weber's " Frie- 
schutz," a character she had long regarded as that in which her 
ability would be genially tested. To it her young ambition had 
long pointed, and with it her artistic sympathies were familiarly 
identified. The hour came, and that wonderful and delicate 
instrument, which as a child she had governed so adroitly that 
it seemed the echo of her mind ; that subtle medium, through 
which her feelings had been wont to find such ready and full 
vent, refused to obey her will, yielded not to the pleadings of 
love or ambition, was hushed as by some cruel magic — and Jenny 
Lind was mute, with anguish in her bosom ; her friends looking 
on in tearful regret, and her maestro chagrhaed beyond descrip- 
tion ! Where had those silvery tones fled ? What catastrophe 
had all at once loosened those invisible harp- strings ? The 
splendid vision of fame, of bounteous pleasure, of world-excited 
sympathy, and of triumphant art, disappeared like the gorgeous 
cities seen by the traveller, from the Straits of Messina, paintecl 
in tinted vapor on the horizon. 

Jenny Lind ceased to sing, but her love uf art was deepened, 
her trust in nature unshaken, her simplicity and kindliness us 
real as before. Four long years she lived without the rich 
promise that had invested her childhood : but, with undiminished 
force of purpose, she studied the art for which she felt herself 
born, with patient, acute, earnest assiduity, and then another and 
blissful episode rewarded her quiet heroism. The fourth act of 
" Robert le Diable" had been announced for a special occasion, 
and it so happened that in consequence of the insignificant 7^6le 
of Alice, consisting of a single solo, no one of the regular singers 



228 T II E V C A L I S T . 

was disposed to adopt the character. In this emergency, Berg 
was reminded of his unfortunate pupil. She meekly consented to 
appear, pleased with an opportunity to be useful, and oblige her 
kind maestro. 

While practising this solo, to the delight and astonishment of 
both teacher and pupil, the long- lost voice suddenly reappeared. 
It seemed as if Nature had only withdrawn the gift for a season, 
that her child might gather strength and wisdom to use it effi- 
ciently, and in an unselfish spirit; and then restored it as a 
deserved recompense for the resignation and truth with which the 
deprivation had been borne. We can fancy the rapturous emo- 
tions of the gentle votary that night, when she retired from the 
scene of her new and unanticipated triumph. The occasion has 
been aptly compared to the memorable thii^d act of the " Merchant 
of Venice" on the evening of Kean's debut at Drury Lane. 
Jenny Lind immediately reverted to her cherished ideal part — 
that of Agatha. She was now sixteen years of age ; her charac- 
ter rendered firm by discipline, her love of music deepened by 
more comprehensive views and a better insight, and her whole 
nature warmed and softened by the realization of the fondest and 
earliest hopes, long baffled, yet consistently cherished. The most 
experienced actors Were struck with wonder at the facility and 
perfection of her dramatic style. In this, as in her vocalism, was, 
at once, recognized that peculiar truth to nature which constitutes 
the perfection of art — that unconsciousness of self and circum- 
stance, and that fresh idea of character, at once so uncommon and 
so delightful. She drew the orchestra after her by her bold'yet 
true execution; and seemed possessed with the genius of the 
composer as well as with the idiosyncrasies of the character she 
sung, so complete and individual was the result. 

Already the idol of her native city, and the hope of the 
Swedish stage, her own ideas of art and aims as an artist remained 
unchanged. Her first desire was to seek the instruction of 
Garcia, with a view to perfect her method and subdue some vocal 
difficulties. She gracefully acknowledged the social homage and 
theatrical distinction awarded her ; but these were but incidental 
to a great purpose. She had a nobler ambition to satisfy, a higher 
ideal to reahze, and pressed on her still obstructed way, unallured 



JENNY LIND. 229 

by the pleasures of the moment, and undismayed by the distance 
of the goal. In order to obtain the requisite means for a sojourn 
at Paris, she made excursions through Norway and Sweden, with 
her father, during the vacations of the theatre, to give concerts ; 
and when sufficient had thus been acquired, she obtained leave of 
absence from the Stockholm director, and left home for Paris, 
notwithstanding the dissuasion of her parents. They confided, 
however, as before, in her own sense of right ; and she hastened 
to place herself under the instruction of Garcia. 

Here another keen disappointment subdued her reviving hopes. 
At the first trial, her new teacher said r " My child, you have no 
voice ; do not sing a note for three months, and then come and 
resume again." Once more she wrapped herself in the mantle 
of patience, went into studious retirement, and, at the prescribed 
time, again returned to Garcia, whose cheering words now were, 
•' My child, you can begin your lessons immediately." Simple 
words^ indeed, but more welcome to that ardent child of song, 
intent on progress in the art she loved, than the wildest plaudits. 
She returned with an elastic step, and entered with joyful enthu- 
siasm upon her artistic career. Meyerbeer immediately oifered 
her an engagement at Berlin. The consummate skill of her 
teacher, and her own enlarged experience and high resolves, made 
her advancement rapid and genuine. Thenceforth a series of 
musical triumphs, unexcelled in the history of the lyrical drama, 
attended the life of Jenny Lind. We might repeat countless 
anecdotes of the universal admiration and profound sympathy she 
excited at Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Bremen. Munich, Aix la 
Chapelle, and, indeed, wherever her voice was heard on the stage 
and at concerts. The testimonies of the highest private regard, 
and public appreciation, were lavished upon her in the shape of 
costly gifts, wreaths of silver, poetic tributes, philosophical criti- 
cisms, the breathless silence or overwhelming applause of entranced 
multitudes, and all the signs of enthusiastic delight at the advent 
of a true child of nature and of song. To us the record of her 
two visits to England is yet vivid, and it is needless to reiterate 
the extraordinary demonstrations which there attested her singu- 
h\r merits and unequalled attractiveness. 

The population of Berlin and Vienna assembled at midnight 
20 



230 THE VOCALIST. 

to bid her adieu ; and when she List left her native citj, every 
ship in the harbor was manned and every quay crowded to see 
her embark in the presence of the queen. Nor are these sponta- 
neous tributes to be exclusively ascribed to the love of novelty 
and the excitement of renown. Heroes and heroines the world 
cannot do without, unless it lapses into frigid and selfish material- 
ism; admiration for talent and sympathy with genius are but 
human instincts. It is seldom, however, that these sentiments 
are upheld and sanctioned by reverence for worth. Therefore is 
it beautiful to witness the voluntary oblations which attend the 
great artist whose expression, however eloquent, is the true mani- 
festation of a pure, noble, and disinterested spirit. It is not 
Jenny Lind in her personality, but as a priestess of art, an inter- 
preter of humanity, a gifted and loyal expositor of feelings that 
lend grace to life and elevation to the soul, that draws the com- 
mon heart toward her w^ith such frank and ardent gratulation. 
Her well-known and unostentatious charities, her simplicity of 
life, her sympathy with her fellow-creatures, and unaffected man- 
ners, so accord with the glorious art she so rarely illustrates, as 
to justify to reflection the impulsive admiration she excites. 

It is not in sublimity that Jenny Lind excels ; and whatever 
excellence her Norma may possess, it is not of that characteristic 
species which renders her impersonations of '•' La Figlia del Re- 
gimento," of Alice, of Lucia, and of Amina, so memorable. In 
the former character she makes innocence play, through the rude 
habits acquired in the camp, in a way so exquisite as to enchant 
as by the spell of reality. In the '• Bride of Lammermoor '' 
there is a melancholy beauty which haunts the listener. It is 
her greatest tragic part. The pathos of the third act seems repro- 
drced from the very genius which created the romance. Her 
Amina "is Bellini's ; and this is saying all that praise can utter. 
We may realize her versatility by comparing the comic jealousy 
so archly displayed in the " Noces de Figaro " with the tender- 
ness of the sleep-w^alking scene in " La Somnambula." It has 
been well observed of her that, in the former opera, " she adheres 
to the genius of Mozart with a modest appreciation of the genius 
of that master '' — a commendation as high as it is rare. One of 
the most remarkable traits of her artistic skill is its exquisite and 



J E N X Y L I N D . 231 

VTonderful discrimination — a quality no description can make 
obvious. 

The peculiar charm of Jenny Lind, as an artist, is her uncon- 
sciousness. We are disposed to regard this as one of the most 
reliable tests of superior gifts. It at least proves the absorption 
of self in what is dearer — a condition essential to all true great- 
ness. The most acute observers of this beautiful vocalist fail to 
detect the slightest reference either to her audience or herself 
while engaged in a part. For the time being her very existence 
seems identified with the character she represents. It is the after- 
thought, not the impression of the moment, that brings us to the 
artist. Infected by the complete realization of the scene, we think 
of it alone : and only when it has passed away do we become 
aware that the genius of another has, as it> were, incarnated a 
story or a sentiment before us, through will, sympathy, and talent. 
The process is quite as unthought of as that by which a master- 
piece of painting or sculpture has been executed, when we stand 
before it rapt in that harmonious spell that permits no analysis 
and suggests no task- work, any more than the landscape of sum- 
mer, or the effulgence of a star. We feel only the presence of 
the beautiful, the advent of a new creation, the irresistible appeal 
to the highest instincts of the soul. 

Carlyle says "the unconscious is the alone complete" — an 
aphorism which Jenny Lind robs of all mystery ; for her superi- 
ority consists in the wholeness and unity of her effects, and this is 
produced by a kind of self-surrender, such as we rarely see except 
in two of the most genuine phases of humanity — genius and 
childhood ; in this tendency they coalesce ; and hence the fresh- 
ness thatr lingers around the richly-endowed nature, and the uni- 
versal faith which it inspires. The secret is tbat such cliaracters 
have never wandered far from nature: they have kept within 
sight of that " immortal sea that brought us hither ; " they con- 
stitute an aristocracy spontaneously recognized by all : and they 
triumph as poets, artists, and influential social beings, not through 
the exercise of any rare and wonderful gift, but from obedience 
to the simple laws of truth — to the primal sympathies, and to a 
kind of innate and glorious confidence which lifts them above 
ignoble fear and selfish tricks. The true hero, poet, artist, the 



232 T H E V C A L I S T . 

true man or woman, who seem to the multitude to be peculiarly 
endowedj differ from those who do them voluntary homage chiefly 
in this unconsciousness of self; this capacity to be ever " nobler 
than their moods; " this sympathetic breadth of life that enables 
them to go forth with a kind of elemental power and enter into 
other forms of being : the principle of their existence is faith, 
not dexterity ; sentiment, not calculation. 

It will be seen that we recognize a moral basis as the source of 
Jenny Lind's fascination ; and, if we were obliged to define this 
in a single word, perhaps the lexicon would furnish none so 
expressive as the homely one — truth. But we use it as signifi- 
cant of far more than the absence of falsehood ; we mean by it 
candor, trust, spontaneity, directness. We believe that Jenny 
Lind inspires sympathy in spite of her petite figure, not alto- 
gether because she warbles enchantingly, and has amiable man- 
nei's, but also on account of the faith she at once excites. We 
perceive that love of approbation is not her ruling impulse, 
although her profession might excuse it ; but that she has an 
ideal of her own, an artistic conscience, a love of art, a musical 
ministry to satisfy and accomplish, and that these considerations 
induce a nobler ambition than coexists with mere vanity. It has 
been said that the remarkable novel of " Consuelo," by George 
Sand, is founded on the character and history of Jenny Lind ; 
and. although this is not the case, the theory of the tale, the 
guileless devotion to art, as such, which stamps the heroine with 
such exalted grace, finds' a parallel in this famed vocalist of the 
North ; the same singleness of purpose and intact clearness of 
soul, the same firm will and gentle heart, are evident. Much, 
too, of her success is attributable to the philosophy of Consuelo's 
maestro — that, to reach the highest excellence in art, the affec- 
tions, as well as the mind, must be yielded at her shrine. There 
is a subtle and deep relation between feeling and expression; 
and the biographies of those who have achieved renown in the 
latter, under any of its artistic forms, indicate that it has 
embodied that within them that found no adequate response in 
actual life. 

The highest efforts of the poet and musician are confessedly 
the result of baffled or overflowing emotion ; disguised, perhaps, 



JENNY LIND. 238 

as to the form, but clearly evident in the tone of thei?^" produc- 
tions. Mozart and Raphael, Bvron and Paganini, have illustrated 
this most emphatically. Jenny Lind seems to have kept her bet- 
ter feelings alive by the habitual exercise of benevolence, and a 
diffusive friendliness, while her concentrated and earnest activity 
finds utterance in her art. Hence the sway she has gained over 
countless hearts, each absorbed in its own dream, or shadowed by 
its own regrets, that glow again in the kindling atmosphere of 
song, which gushes from a soul over which no overmastering 
passion has yet cast a gloom, and whose transparent waters no 
agitation of conflicting desires has ever made turbid and restless. 
Jenny Lind has been a priestess at the shrine of art, and there- 
fore interprets its oracles "as one having authority." 

In this country the idea of fashion, and the mere relish of 
amusement, have blended so exclusively with the support of the 
opera, that we seldom realize its artistic relations and influence. 
The taste for the Italian Opera seems to have extended in the 
ratio of civilization ; and, although it is, after all, an exotic among 
the Anglo-Saxons, — a pleasure born in the " sweet South," and, 
in its very richness of combination, suggestive of the impassioned 
feeling and habitual luxury of thosS climes, — yet, on the other 
hand, it is typical of the complex life, wants, and tendencies, of 
modern society. The old English tragic drama, robust, fierce- 
hearted, and unadorned, has faded before it ; the theatre, as a 
reunion of wits, and an arena for marvellous histrionic effects, as 
a subject of elegant criticism, and a nucleus for universal sym- 
pathy, may be said not to exist ; while the opera has become 
the scene of display, elegance, and pleasure, and of the highest 
triumphs. 

The sentiment of the age has written itself in music. Its wild 
intelligence, its keen analysis, its revolutionary spirit, its restless- 
ness, and its humanity, may be traced in the rich and brilliant 
combinations of Rossini, in the grand symphonies of Beethoven, 
in the pleading tenderness of Bellini, and in the mingled war- 
notes and sentiment of Yerdi. The demand for undisguised and 
free expression, characteristic of the times, finds also its requisite 
scope in the lyrical drama. Recitation is too tame, pantomime 
too silent, scenic art too illusive, costume too familiar, music too 
20* 



234 THE VOCALIST. 

unpicturesque ; but all these combined are, at once, as romantiCj 
exciting, impressive, and melodramatic, as the various aptitudes, 
the exacting taste, and the broad, experimental genius of the age. 
The gifts of nature, the resources of ai-t, the gratification of the 
senses, the exigencies of fashion and taste, and the wants of the 
heart and imagination, find in the opera a most convenient luxury. 
The lyrical drama has thus gradually usurped the place of tour- 
nament and theatre : it is a social as well as an artistic exponent 
of the day : and those who have best illustrated it are justly 
regarded as public benefactors. Few, however, have ministered 
in this temple with the artless grace, the pure enthusiasm, the 
glory, of Jenny Lind. The daughters of the South, ardent and 
susceptible, but capricious and extravagant, have heretofore won 
its chief honors ; their triumphs have been great but spasmodic, 
gained by impulse rather than nature, by glorious gifts of person 
rather than rare graces of soul. 

Jenny Lind, with her fair hair and blue ej'es, her unqueenly 
form, aiid childlike simplicity, has achieved almost unparalleled 
success, by means quite diverse. Her one natural gift is a voice 
of singular depth, compass, flexibility, and tone. This has been, 
if we may be allowed the expression, niesmerized by a soul ear- 
nest, pure, and sincere : and thus, with the clear perception and 
dauntless will of the North, has she interpreted* the familiar 
musical di'amas in a new. vivid, and original manner. One 
would imaojine she had come with one bound from tendincr her 
flock on the hill-side, to warble behind the foot-lights : for, , so 
directly from the heart of nature springs her melody, and so 
beyond the reach of art is the simple grace of her aii' and man- 
ners, that we associate her with the opera only through the con- 
summate skill — the result of scientific trainino; — manifested in 
her vocalism. The term warbling is thus adapted peculiarly ^to 
express the character of her style : its ease, fluency, spontaneaus 
gush, and the total absence of everything meretricious and 
exaggerated in the action and bearing that accompany it. It 
is like the song of a biixl. only more human. Nature in her 
seems to have taken Art to her bosom, and assimilated it, 
thi'ough love, with herself, until the identity of each is lost in 
the other. 



JENNY LIND. 235 

Her career in the United States was signalized by the same 
enthusiasm, judicious and liberal benefactions, and independence 
of character. She was repelled by the "self-idolatry," as she 
termed it, of the Americans, and forced into an antagonistic 
social attitude by the encroachment of the lionizing mania ; but, 
with those she respected and loved, her manners were full of 
sweetness. The blind, the aged, the poor, followed her tri- 
umphant progress with benedictions. She remitted one hundred 
thousand dollars of her American earnings to establish free 
schools in Sweden. Her marriage took place in Boston; and 
one of the leading journals thus truly chronicled the results of 
her visit : 

'• The Swedish Nightingale has folded her wings and hushed 
her song for a time, and betakes herself to the enjoyment of a 
little rest, after her year's great and incessant labors. It is very 
nearly twelve months since she arrived on our shores, and, up to 
this moment, she has been almost constantly before the public. 
She has given one hundred and twenty-three concerts, and has 
travelled more than sixteen thousand miles, in various parts of 
the United States, and in Cuba. How enthusiastically her won- 
drous song has been greeted by the tens of thousands who have 
flocked to listen to it, the press has faithfully and minutely 
chronicled, as her brilliant progress has extended itself over the 
land. Never was there a more powerful impression made by any 
artist who has ever been among us, and never a richer fund of 
private respect and regard accumulated by any stranger visiting 
our shores. Her personal virtues have won as much upon our 
countrymen's and countrywomen's love, as her wonderful music 
has upon their admiration and delight." 

The union of such musical science, such thoroughly disciplined 
art, with such artlessness and simplicity, is, perhaps, the crowning 
mystery of her genius. To know and to love are the conditions 
of triumph in all the exalted spheres of human labor ; and, in 
the musical drama, they have never been so admirably united. 
Her command of expression seems not so much the result of 
study as of inspiration ; and there is about her a certain gentle 
elevation which stamps her to every eye as one who is conse- 
crated to a high service. 



236 THEVOCALIST. 

Her ingenuous countenance, always enlivened by an active 
intelligence, might convey, at first, chiefly the idea of good- 
nature and cleverness in the English sense ; but her carriage, 
voice, movements, and expression, in the more affecting moments 
of a drama, give sympathetic assurance of what we must be 
excused for calling a crystal soul. In all her characters she 
transports us, at once, away from the commonplace and the arti- 
ficial — if not always into the domain of lofty idealism, into the 
more human and blissful domain of primal nature ; and unhappy 
is the being w^ho finds not the unconscious delight of childhood, 
or the dream of love, momentarily renewed in that serene and 
unclouded air. 

In accordance with this view of Jenny Lind's characteristics, 
the enthusiasm she excited in England is alluded to by the lead- 
ing critics as singularly honest. No musical artist, indeed, was 
ever so fitted to win Anglo-Saxon sympathies. She has the 
morale of the North ; and does not awaken the prejudice so 
common in Great Britain, and so truly described in " Corinne," 
against the passionate temperament and tendency to extravagance 
that mark the children of the South. No candidate for public 
favor was ever so devoid of the ordinary means of attaining it. 
There is something absurd in making such a creature the mere 
nucleus of fashionable vanity, or the object of that namby-pamby 
criticism that busies itself with details of personal appearance 
and French terms of compliment. Jenny Lind is not beautiful ; 
she does not take her audiences by storm ; she exercises no intox- 
icating physical magnetism over their sensitive natures. She is 
not classic either in form of feature, or manner, or style of sing- 
ing. Her loveliness as a woman, her power as an artist, her grace 
as a character, lies in expression ; and that expression owes its 
variety and its enchantment to unaffected truth to nature, senti- 
ment, and the principles of art. 

" A melody with Southern passion fraught 

I hear thee warble : 't is as if a bird 
By intuition human strains had caught. 

But whose pure breast no kindred feeling stirred. 
Thy native song the hushed arena fills. 

So wildly plaintive, that I seem to stand 



JENNY LIND. 237 

Alone, and see, from off the circling hills, 

The bright horizon of the North expand ! 
High art is thus intact ; and matchless skill 

Born of intelligence and self-control, — 
The graduated tone and perfect trill 

Prove a restrained, but not a frigid soul ; 
Thine finds expression in such generous deeds. 
That music from thy lips for human sorrows pleads ! " 



THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER 

GEORGE BERKELEY. 



The relation of this country to Europe, as it is rendered more 
intimate by the facilities of modern intercourse and the increase 
of emigration, assumes a greater historical interest. When a 
long, tedious, and comparatively perilous voyage divided us from 
the Old World, the advent of a band of exiles or adventurers, or 
the sojourn of a distinguished foreigner, was a memorable incident. 
The primitive reverence and attachment which bound the early 
colonists to their fatherland, their dependence for intellectual 
resources upon an older civilization, and the nucleus afforded by 
a vast and unappropriated country for the establishment and 
growth of political and religious minorities transplanted froDi 
ancient states and hierarchies, combined to render the arrival of a 
refugee, an experimentalist, a member of a proscribed sect, or the 
advocate of an original scheme or doctrine, an event fraught with 
incalculable results and singular attraction. The motives, career, 
and influence, of the gifted, the unfortunate, and the philanthropic 
men, who have thus sought an asylum and an arena in America, 
w^ould form a chapter in our history second to none in importance 
and romance. It would include the agency of puritan and cava- 
lier, of missionary and gold-seeker, of the thrifty Dutchman, the 
mercurial Gaul, the Spanish soldier, of priest, statesman, and 
trader, in moulding the original elements of national life : and 
from these general types it would descend to the more temporary 
but not less illustrious examples of the chosen few who came 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 239 

hither to report the unrecorded wonders of a fresh continent, to 
examine its natural features, direct its policy, assert the claims 
of discovery and supremacy, minister to its wants, and do battle 
for its liberties. To the eye of the philosopher and the hero 
of Europe, this has ever been the land of infinite possibilities ; 
here scope was yielded to enterprise and thought, to courage and 
ambition, to usefulness and faith, when their development else- 
where was checked by tyranny, overgrown population, conven- 
tionalism, exhausted means, and despotic prejudice. The obsta- 
cles thus impending on the one side of the ocean, and the free 
range open on the other, gave extraordinary impulse, not only to 
the latent forces of society, but to those of individual character. 
Hence the new phases of life, and the salient evolutions of opinion 
and ejQTort, discoverable in the memoirs of the first transatlantic 
visitors. Their history contains some of the noblest and the most 
despicable exhibitions of human nature ; all that is generous and 
base in character, — chivalry and selfishness, the high-minded 
and the rapacious, the benefactor and the foe of mankind, — 
alternate in the chronicle : science and bigotry, philanthropy and 
avarice, the saint and the ruffian, stand out upon the virgin page 
of our primitive annals, the more distinctly and impressively 
because of the solitary back-ground of an unsettled country, and 
the limitless perspective of its subsequent growth. 

The annalist finds, in each company of Europeans who orig- 
inally explored the forests and navigated the streams of America, 
a representative man around whom the colony or roving band is 
grouped on the uncrowded canvas of our early history ; and the 
difference of nation, aim, and faith, is indicated at a glance by 
their very names. What varied associations and opposite ele- 
ments of character are suggested by the figures thus delineated, 
of De Soto and Penn, Lord Baltimore and Hendrick Hudson, 
Roger Williams and Father Marquette ! When the zeal for gain 
and the enthusiasm of adventure and religion had somewhat de- 
clined, liberal curiosity and humane sympathies influenced another 
class of men to seek our shores. The noble volunteers from 
abroad who rallied under the standard of Washington occupy the 
most honored place on this magnanimous roll, — Lafayette, Steu- 
ben, Pulaski, and their brave compeers : and when peace regained 



240 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

her empire consecrated bj freedom, the champions of science and 
truth began to turn their aspirations in the same direction. — some 
urged by persecution, and others by the ardor of discovery and 
beneficence. Priestley, after the destruction of his laboratory by 
a Birmingham mob, brought hither the fearless spirit of inquiry 
and experiment that inspired his ingenious mind : Volney turned 
his sceptical gaze from the decaying monuments of the Elder 
World, to primeval nature in the New ; Whitefield breathed here 
the eloquent appeals that had previously kindled the English dis- 
senters ; Humboldt came to take the altitude of our mountains : 
Michaux, to wander with delight through our glorious woodlands ; 
Cobbet, to publish without restraint his political and economical 
maxims ; Wilson, to give names to the feathered tribe ; and Cha- 
teaubriand, to make the pilgrimage of a poet to the Falls of Niag- 
ara ; Copley came to set up his easel in Boston, and delineate our 
colonial aristocracy in their velvet coats, lace ruffles, huge wigs, 
and brocade robes ; Talleyrand, Moreau, and Louis Philippe, found 
a temporary shelter from persecution among us, and a primitive 
simplicity of manners and government which contrasted strangely 
with the old regime of their native courts and armies ; Genet 
vainly attempted to graft a radical disaffection on the yet tender 
institutions of our republic ; Emmet brought the forensic elo- 
quence of the Irish bar and the patriot regrets of an exile ; Joseph 
Bonaparte, the philosophic content of a kindly heart, weary of 
the "smooth barbarity" of regal care; and Erancis Jeffrey was 
drawn hither by the tender passion, and made New York dining- 
rooms fiimiliar with the complacent sprightliness of an Edinburgh 
critic. Then succeeded the swarm of cockney travellers, whose 
egotistical comments proved so annoying to the sensitive pride of 
embryo nationality ; and after them the ephemeral race of liqns. 
— authors and actors, — who often proved so recreant to the 
memory of a public appreciation too frank and hospitable for their 
merits, — itinerant lecturers, pretentious strangers, fastidious pil- 
grims, ^\hose casual triumph was followed by enduring contempt; 
and interspersed with these, men of higher faculty and less selfish 
aims, worthy ministers at the altar of knowledge, who observed 
the phenomena of our development with the insight of philosophy 
and the sentiment of humanity, — such as the lamented Spurz- 



GEOKGE BERKELEY. 241 

heim, the candid Lyell, and the analytical De Tocqueville. It 
is, indeed, a curious study and an amusing experiment, thus to 
compare the impressions of the illustrious visitors to America, 
from Charlevoix's quaint travels to Tom Moore's lampoons and 
" Lake of the Dismal Swamp," and from Kossuth's speeches to 
Thackeray's table-talk. 

Among the traces yet discoverable of the American sojourn of 
celebrated individuals during the youth of the country, none are 
more pleasing, or more worthy of commemoration, than those 
which yet keep fresh the memory of George Berkeley. He is 
known to the multitude chiefly by the frequent quotation of his 
prophetic stanza, and by one of those terse compliments wnth 
which the heroics of Pope abound. It is, therefore, a grateful 
task to recall the details of his life and the prominent traits 
of his character, associated as they are with a public spirit and 
generous projects, of which, for many years, this land was the 
chosen scene. 

When Shaftesbury, in phrases of studied elegance, was advo- 
cating a modified Platonic system, and Bishop Sherlock repre- 
sented the eloquence of the church : w^hen Swift's pungent satire 
ruled in politics, and Pope's finished couplets were the exemplars 
of poetry ; when Sir Robert Walpole's ministry and Queen Caro- 
line's levees were the civic and social features of the day, there 
moved, in the circles of literature, of state, and of religious fellow- 
ship, one of those men to whom, by virtue of their guileless spirit 
and ingenious minds, their sweet repose of character, gentle man- 
ners, and speculative tendency, we instinctively give the name of 
philosopher. Amid the partisan bitterness and critical rivalry 'of 
that era, a contemplative habit and kindly heart offer a refresh- 
ing contrast to the more aspiring and malevolent elements in 
society. A rare dignity and a potent charm invest the memory 
of the peaceful and disinterested enthusiast. He purifies the tur- 
bid stream of intellectual life, and hallows the pursuit of fame. 
Of this class of men was George Berkeley, who was born at 
Kilcrinin, Ireland, March 12th, 1684. The period embraced in 
his life w^as one of great political activity and scientific achieve- 
ment. He occupied at the school on the Ormond foundation at 
Kilkenny, the form where, shortly before, Sw^ift had studied. 
21 



242 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

Locke, Leibnitz, Bayle, and Sir Isaac Newton, died between hi.s 
cbildhood and his mature fame. 

His countenance was remarkably expressive of intellect and 
benevolence. His strength of limbs was unusual ; his constitu- 
tion was naturally robust, though gradually impaired by the 
inactivity of a student's life ; and an ardent temperament 
animated his frame and manner, and enhanced the effect of his 
candid disposition and attractive intellect. To these obvious 
charms were united the confidence inspired by his integrity and 
his liberal sympathies, and the respect cherished for his learning 
and piety. His life was comparatively uneventful ; its interest 
is derived almost wholly from his character and opinions : yet his 
lot was cast at a period and among influences singularly favorable 
to the gratification of his tastes and the exercise of his powers. 
To a childhood passed in L-eland we ascribe, at least, a degree of 
the frank warmth of feelins; and the imaojinative zest which 
endeared him to contemporaries. The suspicion of Jacobite opin- 
ions, the unfavorable effect of which upon Lord Gal way w\^s 
diverted by Molyneux, a former pupil, seems first to have 
directed public attention to his merits. After becoming a fellow 
of Trinity College, Dublin, he enjoyed the benefit of foreign 
travel, as companion to a son of the Bishop of Clogher ; and soon 
afterwards received the appointment of chaplain to the Duke of 
Grafton, lord-lieutenant of Leland. Through Sir Richard Steele 
he became known to the Earl of Peterborough, who took him to 
Italy as chaplain. On his promotion to the deanery of Derry, in 
172-4, he resigned his fellowship. He subsequently visited 
America on his self-imposed mission, returned to become Bishop 
of Cloyne, and died at Oxford, whither he had repaired to super- 
intend the education of his sons, in 1753. To learning and 
benevolence his whole existence was devoted. He illustrated the 
sentiments of Christianity more by his example as a man than 
by his functions as a priest : and, throughout his career, he was 
a vigilant observer of nature, a patient student of books, a min- 
ister to the wants of his race, an earnest seeker for psychologi- 
cal truth, and a delightful specimen of the genuine Christian 
philosopher. 

Berkeley's metaphysical opinions are known under the generic 



GEOUGE BERKELEY. 243 

title of the '' Ideal Theory," according to ^vhiGh '-'the belief in 
an exterior material world is false and inconsistent with itself ; 
those things which are called sensible, material objects are not 
external, but exist in the mind bj the immediate act of God, 
according to certain rules, termed laws of nature, from which he 
never deviates ; and that the steady adherence of the Supreme 
Spirit to these rules is what constitutes the reality of things to his 
creatures ; and so effectually distinguishes the ideas perceived by 
sense from such as are the work of the mind itself, or of dreams, 
and there is no more danger of confoundino- them toojether on this 
hypothesis than that of the existence of matter." "It is an 
opinion," he observes, in -' The Principles of Human Knowl- 
edge," '' strongly prevailing among men, that houses, mountains, 
rivers, and, in a word, all sensible objects, have an existence natu- 
ral, real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. 
"What are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive 
by sanse, and what do we perceive beside our own ideas and sens- 
ations ? All those bodies vrhich compose the mighty frame of 
the world have not any subsistence without a mind." The germ 
of this philosophy appears in Berkeley's "Theory of A-^ision," 
which has been a ptlj^ described as illustrating "the immediate 
presence and providence of the Deity," and as "a practical 
apprehension of idealism." Stewart assimilates it with the 
theories of Hindoo philosophers, who, according to Sir William 
Jones, thought " the whole creation was rather an energy than a 
work^ by which the Infinite Mind, who is present at all times 
and in all places, exhibits to his creatures a set of perceptions 
like a wonderful picture, or a piece of music, always varied, yet 
always uniform." The practical effect of such views, in the 
opinion of some of Berkeley's opponents, is in the highest degree 
baneful; and Bishop Hoadley thought they "corrupted the 
nature and simplicity of religion by blending it VY'ith the subtlety 
and obscurity of metaphysics." The singular purity of Berke- 
ley's faith, and the integrity of his character, in the opinion of 
some of his religious friends, could alone have furnished an anti- 
dote for the bane of his philosophical doctrines. 

Berkeley is recognized by standard psychological writers as 
having contributed a positive and brilliant truth to their science 



244 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

in his " Theory of Vision." The doctrine is thus briefly stated 
in an article attributed to J. Stewart Mill : 

'■ Of the information which we appear to receive, and which we 
really do, in the maturity of our faculties, receive, through the 
eye, a part only is originally and instinctively furnished by that 
sense ; the remainder is the result of experience. The sense of 
sight informs of nothing originally except light and colors, and a 
certain arrangement of colored lines and points. This arrange- 
ment constitutes what are called by opticians and astronomers 
apparent figure, apparent position, and apparent magnitude ; of 
real figure, position, and magnitude, the eye teaches us nothing ; 
these are fiicts revealed exclusively by the sense of touch. We 
judge an object to be more distant from us by the diminution of 
its apparent magnitude, that is, by linear perspective, or by that 
dimness or faintness of color which generally increases with dis- 
tance, or, in other words, by aerial perspective. Berkeley alleges 
that, to a person born blind and suddenly made to see, all objects 
■would seem to be in his eye, or rather in his mind. It would be 
more correct to say such a person would, at first, have no concep- 
tion of in or out^ and would only be conscious of colors, and not 
of objects."* 

By this work Berkeley met a great problem of human nature, 
and, it appears to us, in a way which, so far from tending to mate- 
rialism and scepticism, involves, in the last analysis, a profound 
recognition of the spiritual being and destiny of man. Hume may 
have drawn from it arguments which, at the first glance, seem to 
favor his disbelief in the foundations of religious faith ; but it is 
evident that the reverse was the case with Berkeley, who was one 
of the most ardent and skilful opponents of the infidelity of his 
day. Much of the discussion which his metaphysical views ex- 
cited was devoted to words rather than to ideas. All our external 
experience is, in point of fact, but a series of impj^essions ; the 
question is, how they are produced ; and the chief peculiarity of 
Berkeley waS; that he ascribed a larger share of this process to the 
mind, and less to the senses, than his predecessors. His error, 
perhaps, consisted not in false premises, but in conclusions broader 

♦Westminster Review, vol. xxxviii., p. 318. 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 245 

than his premises would warrant. The idea which lies at the root 
of his philosophy, so clearly developed in the " Theory of Vis- 
ion," has been accepted by the best thinkers: but the elaboration 
of this idea into a complete system of immaterialism in the 
"Principles of Human Knowledge" finds comparatively few 
adherents. It is in this extreme application that truth becomes 
vague, and the philosopher gives place to the dreamer. None the 
less, however, on this account, should we acknowleds-e our obli- 
gations to Berkeley as a pioneer in the most difficult theme of 
human inquiry. That was but a dogmatical argument of Dr. 
Johnson, who, in reference to this doctrine of the non-existence 
of matter, said, as he kicked a stone. "I refute it thus:" for 
Berkeley never called in question the fact of sensation, but con- 
tended that the sensation and its causes existed only in the mind. 
Bayle, speaking of his " Theory of Vision," declares that, of 
all Berkeley's writings, it is that, '• qui fait le plus honneur a sa 
sagacite et le premier ou Ton ait entrepris de distinguer les opera- 
tions immediates de sens, des inductions que nous tirons habituelle- 
ment de nos sensations."^- " The doctrine of this Theory of 
Vision." says the reviewer already quoted, " has remained one 
of the least disputed doctrines in the most disputed and most dis- 
putable of all sciences — the science of man." 

It would far exceed the scope of our present object, however, 
to analyze the argument and cite the illustrations by which Berke- 
ley endeavors to prove his bold formula. Those interested in 
the subject will find in the volumes devoted to it an exposition 
remarkable for beautiful simplicity of style, clearness of state- 
ment, and ingenious reasoning ; and, if unimpressed with its 
logic, they cannot fail to be charmed with its tone, and won by 
many a glimpse of the mysterious analogies which link our 
spiritual consciousness with outward experience. Sir James 
Mackintosh thus estimates Berkeley as a mental philosopher : « 
" His immaterialism is chiefly valuable as a touchstone of meta- 
physical sagacity, showing them to be altogether without it, who, 
like Johnson and Beattie, believe that his speculations were scep- 
tical, that they implied any dishonesty, or that they had the 

* Biographie Universelle. 

21* 



246 THE C II III S T I A N PHILOSOPHER. 

smallest tendency to disturb reasoning or to alter conduct." Of 
his style, Sir James remarks: "It is the finest model- of the 
philosophical since Cicero;" and elsewhere, alluding to his List 
tract, he says : " His immaterialism. indeed, modestly appears, 
but only to purify and elevate our thoughts, and to fix them on 
mind -^ the paramount and primeval principle of all things." 

The origin of works that betray strong individuality is always 
an interesting subject of inquiry. The varied learning and the 
charitable instincts of Berkeley might have found ample scope in 
the exercise of his profession ; and the tendency of his mind was 
towards the natural and exact sciences, as is evident from the 
objects which attracted him in travel, and the books and compan- 
ions he sought. He adventured in the field of metaphysics in 
consequence of the excitement his young imagination derived 
from works of fiction, and the subsequent reaction of his judgment 
and taste from the prescribed text-books in mental philosophy at 
the University ; and he was still further inspired by the enthu- 
siasm for such investigations awakened by the writings of Locke 
and Malebranche. These causes fixed his thoughts on the study 
of our mysterious nature ; and the ideas he evolved were enhanced 
in value by the ardor of his disposition, and were the more strongly 
advocated because vehemently opposed. The form of dialogues 
imitated from Plato, in which some of his principal treatises arc 
cast, gives them an obsolete air ; and the main problem he under- 
took to solve, viewed apart from his acute arguments, is one of 
those broad generalizations which it is far easier for less noble 
minds to ridicule than to appreciate. 

It is remarkable that Berkeley's mind, though so visionary in 
speculation, was keenly observant and exact. When the " Minute 
Philosopher " was republished in this country, it excited unusual 
attention, and was esteemed an excellent argument against irreli- 
' gion, though somewhat too elaborate and dry for prolonged popu- 
larity. A marked resemblance has been traced between parts of 
this work and Butler's Analogy. Besides his metaphysical writ- 
ings, a mathematical treatise in Latin, a number of controversial 
tracts, occasional sermons, and a few of his letters, admit us still 
further into a knoAvledge of his opinions and disposition. In 
every instance these casual eflbrts are inspired by an enthusiasm 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 217 

for truth, which, he quaintly says, "is the cry of all, but the 
game of few," or by a desire to enlighten and benefit others. 
The titles of these writings indicate their purpose : — "A Dis- 
course to an Infidel Mathematician;" another to "Magistrates 
on Irreligious Living;" " A Word to the Wise," wherein he 
successfully sought to pacify the Catholic clergy of Ireland and 
promote more liberal feelings towards them; " The Querist," in 
which many useful and benevolent suggestions are ofiered for the 
public welfare, and several original hints are given worthy of a 
political economist, before the science had attained its present con- 
sideration; " A Proposal for better supplying Churches in our 
Foreign Plantations." Every one has read the pensive descrip- 
tion of the old South-sea house in London, in which Lamb reveals 
in mellow tints its monitory decay. When the distress incident 
to the failure of that splendid scheme was rife, Berkeley improved 
the occasion ^o offer suggestions both of warning and counsel 
worthy of his sagacious mind and benevolent heart. As a writer 
he was thus of great immediate utility, especially as the affection- 
ate esteem in which he was held gave sanction to his counsels. 
When we examine his literary remains, however, with the more 
concise and varied forms of didactic writing brought into vogue 
during the last half-century fresh in our minds, there appears a 
want of life and brilliancy in his most sensible remarks. His 
style, however deserving of eulogy as a medium for abstract dis- 
cussion, is somewhat monotonous and diffuse, more that of a 
scholarly sermonizejr than of a modern essayist. And yet it is 
impossible to recur to his candid and ingenious writings, in which 
an intrepid love of truth and a liberal grace of character seem to 
breathe from the unexaggerated, clear, and tranquil diction, with- 
out feeling a certain admiration of the author, springing from love 
for the man, more than from sympathy witli the philosopher. 
His extensive knowledge and catholic tastes are apparent even in 
the advocacy of his special opinions, and the genial light of a 
humane, bold, and comprehensive mind, gives a charm to ideas 
that often have no present importance, and to objects for some 
of which it is no longer needful to plead. 

It was a sagacious remark of Madame de Stael, that when we 
are much attached to our ideas we endeavor to connect everything 



248 THE CIimSTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

with them : and seldom has this trait of the intellectual enthu- 
siast been more emphatically illustrated than in the case of 
Berkeley. Whenever his feelings were enlisted in behalf of a 
theory or an enterprise, he derived an argument or a charm from 
the most distant associations. One of the last of his favorite 
ideas was a faith in the curative qualities of tar-water, which had 
proved useful in a malady under which he suffered. His treatise 
on the subject deserves no mean rank among the curiosities of 
literature. The research, ingenuity, and scholarship, elicited by 
his ardent plea for this specific, evince a patient and elaborate 
contemplation seldom manifest in the discussion of the most com- 
prehensive questions. He analyzes the different balsams, from 
the balm of Gilead to amber ; he quotes Leo Africanus to describe 
the process of making tar on Mount Atlas, and compares it with 
that used in New England ; he cites Herodotus and Pliny, Theo- 
phrastus and Plato, Boerhaave and Evelyn ; he surveys the whole 
domain of vegetable physiology, points out the relation of volatile 
salts to the economy of the blood, and discusses natural history, 
the science of medicine, chemistry, and the laws of life, space, 
light, and the soul itself, — all with ostensible reference to the 
virtues of tar- water. He enumerates every conceivable disease 
as a legitimate subject of its efficacy ; and. while thus prolix and 
irrelevant, fuses the whole with good sense, fine rhetoric, and 
graceful zeal. 

His early travels form a pleasing episode in his life. Though 
somewhat restricted by professional duties, Jie improved every 
opportunity to observe and record his impressions. The few let- 
ters from Italy published in his memoirs convey the zest and 
intelligence with which he enjoyed his tour, and his affectionate 
remembrance of home. He was repelled by the " cold, trivial 
conceits " of the modern Italian poets, and hailed their newly 
awakened interest in English authors, as manifested in the trans- 
lation of Milton that had just appeared. He was present at a 
disputation at the Sorbonne when in Paris, and, at the English 
college there, saw the body of the last king James. He was car- 
ried over part of the Alps during winter in a chair. Erom the 
fact that all volcanoes are near the sea, he inferred a vacuum 
caused in the bowels of the earth by a vast body' of inflammable 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 249 

jnatter taking fire, the water rushing in and being converted into 
steam, which gives rise to the eruption. In one of his epistles is 
a minute and eloquent description of the island of Ischia. which 
he calls " an epitome of the whole earth;" in another he gives 
an account of the people of Naples, which shows that they lived 
a century and a half ago exactly as at present. 

" Would you know," he asks. " how we pass the time at Na- 
ples ? Our chief entertainment is the devotion of our neighbors. 
Besides the gayety of their churches (where folks go to see what 
they call una bella devozione^ that is, a sort of religious opera), 
they make fireworks almost every week, out of devotion ; the 
streets are often hung with arras, out of devotion ; and, what is 
still more strange, the ladies invite gentlemen to their houses, and 
treat them with music and sweetmeats, out of devotion; in a 
word, were it not for this devotion of its inhabitants, Naples 
would have little else to recommend it, except the air and situa- 
tion." 

The following passages of one of his letters to Pope are charac- 
teristic : 

" Leghorn, May 1, 1714. 

" As I take ingratitude to be a greater crime than impertinence, 
I choose rather to run the risk of being thought guilty of the lat- 
ter than not to return you my thanks for a very agreeable enter- 
tainment you just now gave me. I have accidently met with 
your Rape of the Lock here, having never seen it before. Style, 
painting, judgment, spirit, I had already admired in other of 
your writings ; but in this I am charmed with the magic of your 
invention, with all those images, allusions, and inexplicable beau- 
ties, which you raise so surprisingly^, and at the same time so 
naturally, out of a trifle. And yet I cannot say that I was more 
pleased with the reading of it than I am with the pretext it gives 
me to renew in your thoughts the remembrance of one who values 
no happiness beyond the friendship of men of wit, learning, and 
good-nature. 

"I remember to have heard you mention some half- formed 
design of coming to Italy. What might we not expect from a 
muse that sings so well in the bleak climate of England, if she 



250 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

felt the warm sun, and breathed the same air with Yirgil and 
Horace?" 

:^^ ***** * 

" Green fields and groves, flowery meadows and purling 
streams, are nowhere in such perfection as in England ; but if 
you would know lightsome days, warm suns, and blue skies, you 
must come to Italy : and to enable a man to describe rocks and 
precipices, it is absolutely necessary that he pass the Alps." 

As chaplain to the Earl of Peterborough, Berkeley preached 
regularly at the English factories in Leghorn, and used to relate 
wdth much humor a visit he there received from a troop of priests, 
who walked around his chamber, sprinkling holy water, and mut- 
tering Latin prayers. He imagined the ceremony to be an exor- 
cism of heresy, but discovered that it was only the observance of 
the day enjoined by the Roman calendar for blessing the house 
and clearing it of vermin. Another and more grave adventure 
befell him at Paris, where a warm and protracted argument he 
held with Malebranche, who, in a dressing-gown, and over a pip- 
kin on the coals, was nursing himself for an inflammation of the 
lungs, so aggravated the disorder as to cause the metaphysician's 
death a few days after. While at Lyons he wrote an ingenious 
tract, ''De Motu," and sent it to the Royal Academy of Sci- 
ences. It is deeply to be regretted that his copious and studi- 
ously gathered notes for a Natural History of Sicily — the fruit 
of his zealous observation there — were lost, with his journals, at 
Naples. 

The social and friendly relations of Bei'keley well illustrate 
both his character and his position. He was a favorite of Queen 
Caroline, at whose soirees spirited discussions of his theory oc- 
curred between himself, Clark, Hoadley, and Sherlock. She was 
in the habit of sending for him to talk over the American -project : 
and when her generous intentions were thwarted, by some consid- 
erations of etiquette," that prevented his obtaining a deanery in 
Ireland, she declared that " if he could not be a dean he should 
be a bishop," and appointed him to Cloyne. Steele and Swift 
introduced him to their coteries of wits and to men of influence. 
He was a contributor to the Guardian, and, to his great surprise, 



GEOEGE BERKELEY. 251 

among the principal heirs of Esther Yanhomorigh (Vanessa). 
No prominent man of that day enjoyed so many permanent and 
eligible friendships. Satire, then so much in vogue, was melted 
into kindness, and criticism softened to eulogy, when his name 
occurred in verse, letter, or conversation. Swift could not sym- 
pathize with his dreams, yet he earnestly advocated his cause. 
Addison laid aside his constitutional reserve to promote Berke- 
ley's wishes. Pope made an exception in his favor, and suffered 
encomium to remain on his musical page unbalanced by censure. 
" I take you," says one of his letters, inviting the dean to Twick- 
enham, "to be almost the only friend I have that is above the 
little vanities of the town." Atterbury declared, after an inter- 
view with him : "So much understanding, so much innocence, 
and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any 
but angels, until I saw this gentleman." It is related by Lord 
Bathurst, that, on one occasion, when several members of the 
Scriblerius Club met at his house to dine, it was agreed to rally 
Berkeley, who was also invited, upon his American scheme. The 
latter heard the merry banter with the utmost good-nature, and 
then asked permission to reply ; and, as his noble host afterwards 
declared, "displayed his plan with such an astonishing and ani- 
mating fiery eloquence and enthusiasm, that they were struck 
dumb, and, after some pause, rose all up together, with earnest- 
ness, exclaiming, ' Let us set out immediately ! ' " When he 
determined to make Oxford his abode, he tendered the resigna- 
tion of the bishopric of Cloyne ; but the king refused to accept it, 
declaring that he "should live where he pleased and die a bishop." 
"He is," writes Warburton, "a great man, and the only vision- 
ary I ever knew that was." 

Beloved and respected as he was, however, and not without 
eminent disciples as the advocate of a metaphysical theory, 
Berkeley seems to have been regarded by many of the prominent 
men of his day as an amiable dreamer. " Poor philosopher 
Berkeley," alluding to his illness, writes Swift, "has now the 
idea of health, which it was very hard to produce in him, for he 
had an idea of a strange fever, so strong that it was very hard to 
destroy it by introducing a contrary one." "I have not seen 
Dean Berkeley," writes Gay to Swift, " but I have read his book 



252 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

(The Minute Philosopher), and like many parts of it; but in 
general think, Avith you, that it is too speculative." When one 
of his converts, after a sharp argument during an evening visit, 
rose to depart, "Pray, sir," said Dr. Johnson, "don't leave us, 
for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will 
cease to exist." Similar w'itticisms are of frequent occurrence in 
the anecdotes preserved of his illustrious friends ; and even when 
they urged those in power to aid the realization of his benevolent 
enterprise, the plea is often modified by some compassionate allu- 
sion to that romance of character to which his ardent projects 
were ascribed. It is, however, a law of disinterested action, that, 
when baffled in its specific aim, incidental good is sure to result ; 
and, in order justly to estimate the personal influence of Berke- 
ley in the w^orld of opinion and the cause of humanity, we must 
take into view the indirect agency of his doctrine, the casual ser- 
vices he fulfilled, and the efficiency of the spirit he was of 
Thus considered, it will be seen that the example and writings 
of few church dignitaries have proved more beneficent and 
attractive. 

When he returned home, after the failure of his college scheme 
in America, he instantly paid back all the contributions he had 
received in aid of that object. When he became the legatee of 
Swift's indignant mistress, he honorably burned all her love-let- 
ters.^ His last act at Cloyne, where his residence had been fraught 
with blessings to the people, was to sign a lease of the demesne 
lands there, to be renewed yearly, at a rent of two hundred 
pounds, for distribution to the poor of the neighborhood. 

He enjoyed true philosophic content. " We behold these vicis- 
situdes," says one of his letters, "with an equal eye from this 
serene corner of Cloyne ; " and, speaking of the gout, from which 
he occasionally suffered, he observes, "It throws off a sharp ex- 
crement from the blood to the limbs and extremities of the body, 
and is no less useful than painful." The following passage from 

* It was said, indeed, that Vanessa made it a condition of her legacy, that her 
correspondence with Swift should be published, and Berkeley has been reproached 
for its non-fulfilment. Sir Walter Scott, in his Life of Swift, explains the whole 
affair. There was no such condition in the will, and, although Berkeley destroyed 
the letters, his co-heritor retained copies, and from these extracts subsequently 
found their way into print. 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 253 

another letter gives us a charming idea of the same spirit when 
age began to subdue his vivacity : 

"For my own part," he writes, under date of April 6, 1752, 
''I submit to years and infirmities. My views in this world are 
mean and narrow : it is a thing in which I have a small share, 
and which ought to give me small concern. I abhor business, 
and especially to have to do with great persons and great affairs. 
The evening of life I choose to pass in a quiet retreat. Ambi- 
tious projects, intrigues and quarrels of statesmen, are things I 
have formerly been amused with, but they now seem to me a vain 
and fugitive dream. We have not the transports of your castle- 
hunters, but our lives are calm and serene." 

The love of retirement, native to the scholar, was confirmed in 
Berkeley by domestic affections. His wife had some skill in 
painting, and music was cultivated in the family, for it was their 
custom to assemble early in the morning to receive instruction in 
that art from an Italian professor. The day the bishop passed in 
his study, and gave the evening to his family and social inter- 
course. Beautiful, even in its sadness, was the death of this benig- 
nant and gifted man, and singularly appropriate to the close of 
such a life. One Sabbath afternoon, in the winter of 1753, as he 
lay on a couch, in the full possession of those noble faculties he had 
borne so meekly, listening to one of Sherlock's sermons, his wife 
beside and his children around him, the gentle and exalted spirit 
of Berkeley took its flight, without a struggle, and so quietly that 
it was not until his daughter, approaching him to offer refresh- 
ment, found his hand cold, that they knew he was no more. 

Such was the character and such the career of the man who, a 
century and a quarter ago, turned manfully from the allurements 
of clerical distinction and literary society, from the pleasures of 
wealth and fame, to bring religious truth and intellectual culture 
to the aborigines of this continent ; who anticipated its marvellous 
destinies, and hailed it as a new field for the triumphs of human- 
ity. There are more imposing monuments in the venerable pre- 
cincts of Oxford, recalling the genius which hallows our ancestral 
literature, but at the tomb of Berkeley we linger with affection- 
ate reverence, as we associate the gifts of his mind and the graces 
22 



254 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

of his spirit with that disinterested and memorable visit to our 
country. 

In 1725, Berkeley published his proposals in explanation of 
this long-cherished purpose ; at the same time he offered to resign 
his livings, and to consecrate the remainder of his days to this 
Christian undertaking. So magnetic were his appeal and exam- 
ple, that three of his brother fellows at Oxford decided to unite 
Avith him in the expedition. Many eminent and wealthy persons 
were induced to contribute their influence and money to the 
cause. But he did not trust wholly to such means. Having 
ascertained the worth of a portion of the St. Christopher's lands 
ceded by France to Great Britain by the treaty of Utrecht, and 
about to be disposed of for public advantage, he undertook to real- 
ize from them larger proceeds than had been anticipated, and sug- 
gested that a certain amount of these funds should be devoted to 
his college. Availing himself of the friendly intervention of a 
Venetian gentleman whom he had known in Italy, he submitted 
the plan to George I., who directed Sir Robert Walpole to carry 
it through parliament. He obtained a charter for "erecting a 
college, by name St. Paul's, in Bermuda, with a president and 
nine fellow^s, to maintain and educate Indian scholars, at the rate 
of ten pounds a year, George Berkeley to be the first president, 
and his companions from Trinity College the fellows." His com- 
mission was voted May 11, 1726. To the promised amount of 
twenty thousand pounds, to be derived from the land sale, many 
sums were added from individual donation. The letters of Berke- 
ley to his friends, at this period, are filled with the discussion of 
his scheme ; it absorbed his time, taxed his ingenuity, filled his 
heart, and drew forth the warm sympathy and earnest coopera- 
tion of his many admirers, though regret at the prospect of los- 
ing his society constantly finds expression. Swift, in a note to 
the lord lieutenant of Ireland, says : " I do humbly entreat your 
excellency either to use such persuasions as will keep one of the 
first men of the kingdom, for learning and genius at home, or 
assist him by your credit to compass his romantic design." "I 
have obtained reports," says one of his own letters, "from the 
Bishop of London, the board of trade and plantations, and the 
attorney and solicitor-general:" " yesterday the charter passed 



GEOUGE BERKELEY. • 255 

the privy seal ; " "' the lord chancellor is not a busier man than 
myself: " and elsewhere, •' I have had more opposition from the 
governors and traders to America than from any one else, but, 
God be praised, there is an end of all their narrow and mercantile 
views and endeavors, as well as of the jealousies and suspicions 
of others, some of whom were very great men, who appreliended 
this college may produce an independency in America, or at least 
lessen her dependency on England." 

Freneau's ballad of the " Indian Boy," who ran back to the 
woods from the halls of learning, was written subsequently, or it 
might have discouraged Berkeley in his idea of the capacity of 
the American savages for education ; but more positive obstacles 
thwarted his generous aims. The king died before affixing his 
seal to the charter, which delayed the whole proceedings. Wal- 
pole, efficient as he was as a financier and a servant of the house 
of Brunswick, was a thorough utilitarian, and too practical and 
worldly-wise to share in the disinterested enthusiasm of Berkeley. 
In his answer to Bishop Gibson, whose diocese included the "West 
Indies, when he applied for tlie funds so long withheld, he says : 
' ' If you put the question to me as a minister, I must assure you 
that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits 
with public convenience ; but if you ask me as a friend whether 
Dean Berkeley should continue in America, expecting the pay- 
ment of tw^enty thousand pounds, I advise him by all means to 
return to Europe." To the project, thus rendered unattainable, 
Berkeley had devoted seven years of his life, and the greater 
part of his fortune. The amount realized by the sale of confis- 
cated lands was about ninety thousand pounds, of which eighty 
thousand were devoted to the marriage portion of the Princess. 
Boyal, about to espouse the Prince of Orange ; and the remain- 
der, through the, influence of Oglethorpe, was secured to pay for 
the transportation of emigrants to his Georgia colony. Berke- 
ley's scheme was more deliberate and well-considered than is 
commonly believed. Horace Walpole calls it "uncertain and 
amusing ; " but a writer of deeper sympathies declares it " too 
grand and pure for the powers that were." His nature craved 
the united opportunities of usefulness and of self-culture ; he felt 
the obligation to devote himself to benevolent enterprise, and at 



256 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

the same time earnestly desired both the leisure and the retire- 
ment needful for the pursuit of abstract studies. The project he 
contemplated promised to realize all these objects. He possessed 
a heart to feel the infinite wants, intellectual and religious, of tbe 
new continent, and had the imagination to conceive the grand 
destinies awaiting its growth. Those who fancy that his views 
were limited to the plan of a doubtful missionary experiment do 
great injustice to the broad and elevated hopes he cherished ; he 
knew that a recognized seat of learning open to the poor and 
uncivilized, and the varied moral exigencies of a new country, 
would insure ample scope for the exercise of all his erudition and 
his talents ; he felt that his mind would be a kingdom wherever 
his lot was cast ; and he was inspired by a noble interest in the 
progress of America, and a faith in the new field there open for 
the advancement of truth, as is evident from the celebrated verses 
in which these feelings found expression : 

*'The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime 
Barren of every glorious theme, 
In distant lands now waits a better time. 
Producing subjects worthy fame. 

In happy climes, when from the genial sun 

And virgin earth such scenes ensue, 
The force of ai-t by nature seems outdone, 

And fancied beauties by the true ; 

In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 

"Where nature guides and virtue rules, 
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense 

The pedantry of schools ; 

Then shall we see again the golden age, 

The rise of empir^e and of arts. 
The good and great inspiring epic rage. 

The wisest heads and noblest hearts ; 

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; 

Such as she Hbred when fi-esh and young, 
When heavenly flame did animate her clay. 

By future poets shall be sung. 

Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall end the drama with the day ; 

Time's noblest ofispring is the last." 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 257 

In August, 1728, Berkeley married a daughter of the Honor- 
able John Foster, speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and, 
soon after, embarked for America. His companions were, his 
wife and her friend. Miss Hancock : two gentlemen of fortune, 
James and Dalton ; and Smibert the painter. In a picture by 
the latter, now in the Trumbull gallery at New Haven, are pre- 
served the portraits of this group, with that of the dean's infant 
son, Henry, in his mother's arms. It was painted for a gentle- 
man of Boston, of whom it was purchased, in 1808, by Isaac 
Lothrop, Esq., and presented to Yale College. This visit of 
Smibert associates Berkeley's name with the dawn of art in 
America. They had travelled together in Italy, and the dean 
induced him to join the expedition partly from friendship, and 
also to enlist his services as instructor in drawing and architec- 
ture, in the proposed college. Smibert was born in Edinburgh, 
about the year 1684, and served an apprenticeship there to a 
house-painter. He went to London, and, from painting coaches, 
rose to copying old pictures for the dealers. He then gave three 
years to the 'study of his art in Italy. 

" Smibert," says Horace Walpole, '• was a silent and modest 
man, who abhorred the Jivesse of some of his profession, and was 
enchanted with a plan that he thought promised tranquillity and an 
honest subsistence in a healthy and elysian climate, and in spite 
of remonstrances engaged with the dean, whose zeal had ranged 
the favor of the court on his side. The king's death dispelled 
the vision. One may conceive how a man so devoted to his art 
must have been animated when the dean's enthusiasm and elo- 
quence painted to his imagination a new theatre of prospects, 
rich, warm, and glowing with scenery which no pencil had yet 
made common." * 

Smibert was the jBrst educated artist who visited our shores, 
and the picture referred to, the first of more than a single figure 
executed in the country. To his pencil New England is 
indebted for portraits of many of her early statesmen and clergy. 
Among others, he painted for a Scotch gentleman ihe only 
authentic likeness of Jonathan Edwards. He married a lady of 
fortune in Boston, and left her a widow with two* children, in 

* Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iii. 
22* 



258 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

1751. A high eulogium on his abilities and character appeared 
in the London Courant. From two letters addressed to him by 
Berkeley, when residing at Cloyne, published in the Gentleman's 
Magazine, it would appear that his friendship for the artist con- 
tinued after their separation, as the bishop urges the painter to 
recross the sea and establish himself in his neicchborhood. 

A considerable sum of money, and a large and choice collec- 
tion of books, designed as a foundation for the library of St. 
Paul's College, were the most important items of the dean's out- 
fit. In these days of rapid transit across the Atlantic, it is not 
easy to realize the discomforts and perils of such a voyage. 
Brave and philanthropic, indeed, must have been the heart of an 
English church dignitary, to whom the road of preferment was 
open, who was a favorite companion of the genial Steele, the 
classic Addison, and the brilliant Pope, who basked in the smile 
of royalty, was beloved of the church, revered by the poor, the idol 
of society, and the peer of scholars ; yet could shake off the 
allurements of such a position to endure a tedious voyage, a long 
exile, and the deprivations attendant on a crude state of society 
and a new civilization, in order to achieve an object which, how- 
ever excellent and generous in itself, was of doubtful issue, and 
beset with obstacles. Confiding in the pledges of those in 
authority, that the parliamentary grant would be paid when the 
lands had been selected, and full of the most sanguine anticipa- 
tions, the noble pioneer of religion and letters approached the 
shores of the New World. 

It seems doubtful to some of his biographers whether Berkeley 
designed to make a preliminary visit to Rhode 'Island, in order 
to purchase lands there, the income of which would sustain his 
Bermuda institution. The vicinity of that part of the New Eng- 
land coast to the West Indies may have induced such a course ; 
but it is declared by more than one that his arrival at Newport 
was quite accidental. This conjecture, however, is erroneous, as 
in one of his letters, dated September 5, 1728, he says : '' To- 
morrow, with God's blessing, I set sail for Rhode Island." The 
captain of the ship which conveyed him from England, it is said, 
was unable to discover the island of Bermuda, and at length 
abandoned the attempt, and steered in a northerly direction. 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 259 

They made land which they could not identify, and supposed it 
inhabited only by Indians ; it proved, however, to be Block 
Island, and two fishermen came off and informed them of the 
vicinity of Newport harbor. Under the pilotage of these men, the 
vessel, in consequence of an unfavorable wind, entered what is 
called the West passage, and anchored. The fishermen were sent 
ashore with a letter from the dean to Rev. James Honyman. 
They landed at Canonicut Island, and sought the dwellings of two 
parishioners of that gentleman, who immediately conveyed the 
letter to their pastor. For nearly half a century this faithful 
clergyman had labored in that region. He first established 
himself at Newport, in 1704. Besides the care of his own 
church, he made fi-equent visits to the neighboring towns on the 
main land. In a letter to the secretary of the Episcopal mission 
in America, in 1709, he says, "You can neither believe, nor 
I express, what excellent services for the cause of religion a 
bishop would do in these parts ; these infant settlements would 
become beautiful nurseries, which now seem to languish for want 
of a father to oversee and bless them ; " and in a memorial to 
Governor Nicholson on the religious condition of Rhode Island, 
in 1714, he observes : " The people are divided among Quakers, 
Anabaptists, Independents, Gortonians, and Infidels, with a rem- 
nant of true Churchmen." * It is characteristic of the times 
and region, that with a broad circuit and isolated churches as 
the sphere of his labors, the vicinity of Indians, and the variety 
of sects, he was employed for two months, in 1723, in daily 
attending a large number of pirates who had been captured, 
and were subsequently executed; one of the murderous bands 
which then infested the coast, whose extraordinary career 
has been illustrated by Cooper, in one of his popular nautical 
romances. 

When Berkeley's missive reached this worthy pastor, he was in 
his pulpit, it being a holiday. He immediately read the letter to 
his congregation, and dismissed them. Nearly all accompanied 
him to the ferry wharf, which they reached but a few moments 

* Hawkins' Historical Notices of the Missions of the Church of England in the 
North American Colonies, p. 173. 



260 THE CIimSTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

before the arrival of the dean and his fellow-vojagers. A letter 
from Newport, dated January 24th, 1729, that appeared in the 
New England Journal, published at Boston, thus notices the 
event: " Yesterday arrived here Dean Berkeley, of London- 
derry, in a pretty large ship. He is a gentleman of middle stat- 
ure, and of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He was 
ushered into the town by a great number of gentlemen, to whom 
he behaved himself after a very complaisant manner. 'T is said 
he purposes to tarry here about three months." 

We can easily imagine the delightful surprise which Berkeley 
acknowledges at first view of that lovely bay and the adjacent 
country. The water tinted, in the clear autumn air, like the 
Mediterranean ; the fields adorned with symmetrical haystacks 
and golden maize, and bounded by a lucid horizon, against which 
rose picturesque windmills and the clustered dwellings of the 
town, and the noble trees which then covered the island ; the 
bracing yet tempered atmosphere, all greeted the senses of those 
weary voyagers, and kindled the grateful admiration of their 
romantic leader. He soon resolved upon a longer sojourn, and 
purchased a farm of a hundi^ed acres at the foot of the hill 
whereon stood the dwelling of Honyman, and which still bears 
his name.* 

There he erected a modest homestead, with philosophic taste 
choosing the valley, in order to enjoy the fine view from the sum- 
mit occasionally, rather than lose its charm by familiarity. At 
a sufiicient distance from the town to insure immunity from idle 
visitors ; w^ithin a few minutes' walk of the sea, and girdled by a 
fertile vale, the student, dreamer, and missionary, pitched his hum- 
ble tent where nature offered her boundless refreshment, and seclu- 
sion her contemplative peace. His first vivid impressions of the 
situation, and of the difficulties and consolations of his position, 
are desciibed in the few letters, dated at Newport, which his 
biographer cites. At this distance of time, and in view of the 
subsequent changes of that region, it is both curious and interest- 
ing to levert to these incidental data of Berkeley's visit. 

* The conveyance from Joseph Whipple and wife to Berkeley, of the land in 
Newport, is dated Feb. 18, 1729. 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 261 

" Newport, in Rhode Island, April 24, 1729. 

'' I can by this time say something to you, from my own expe- 
rience, of this place and its people. The inhabitants are of a 
mixed kind, consisting of many sects and subdivisions of sects. 
Here are four sorts of Anabaptists, besides Presbyterians, Quakers, 
Independents, and many of no profession at all. Notwithstanding 
so many differences, here are fewer quarrels about religion than 
elsewhere, the people living peacefully with their neighbors of 
whatever persuasion. They all agree in one point, — that the 
Church of England is the second best. The climate is like that 
of Italy, and not at all colder in the winter than I have known 
everywhere north of Rome. The spring is late, but, to make 
amends, they assure me the autumns are the finest and the long- 
est in the world ; and the summers are much pleasanter than 
those of Italy by all accounts, forasmuch as the grass continues 
green, which it does not there. This island is pleasantly laid out 
in hills and vales and rising ground, hath plenty of excellent 
springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful rocks, and promon- 
tories, and adjacent lands. The provisions are very good ; so are 
the fruits, which are quite neglected, though vines sprout of them- 
selves of an extraordinary size, and seem as natural to this soil as 
any I ever saw. The town of Newport contains about six thou- 
sand souls, and is the most thriving place in all America for its 
bigness. I was never more agreeably surprised than at the first 
sight of the town and its harbor." 

" June 12, 1729. — I find it hath been reported in Ireland that 
we intend settling here ; I must desire you to discountenance any 
such report. The truth is, if the king's bounty were paid in, and 
the charter could be removed hither, I should like it better than 
Bermuda. But if this were questioned before the payment of 
said money, it might perhaps hinder it and defeat all our designs. 
I snatch this moment to write, and have time only to add that I 
have got a son, who, I thank God, is likely to live." 

"May 7. — This week I received a package from you via 
Philadelphia, the postage of which amounted to above four pounds 
sterling of this country money. I am worried to death by cred- 
itors, and am at an end of patience, and almost out of my wits. 



262 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

Our little son is a great joj to us : we are such fools as to think 
him the most perfect thing of the kind we ever saw." 

To the poet, scenery of picturesque beauty and grandeur is 
desirable, but to the philosopher general effects are more con- 
genial. High mountains, forests, and waterfalls, appeal more 
emphatically to the former, and luxuries of climate and atmos- 
phere to the latter. Accordingly the soft marine air and the 
beautiful skies of summer and autumn, in the region of Berke- 
ley's American home, with the vicinity of the sea-coast, became 
to him a perpetual delight. He alludes, with grateful sensibil- 
ity, to the '* pleasant fields," and " walks on the beach," to "the 
expanse of ocean studded with fishing-boats and lighters," and 
the "plane-trees," that daily cheered his sight, as awakening 
" that sort of joyful instinct which a rural scene and fine weather 
inspire." He calls Newport "the Montpelier of America," and 
appears to have communed with nature and inhaled the salubri- 
ous breeze, while pursuing his meditations, with all the zest of a 
healthy organization and a susceptible and observant mind. A 
few ravines, finely wooded and with fresh streams purling over 
rocky beds, vary the alternate uplands ; from elevated points a 
charming distribution of water enlivens the prospect; and the 
shore is indented with high cliffs or rounded into graceful curves. 
The sunsets are remarkable for a display, of gorgeous and radiant 
clouds ; the wide sweep of pasture is only broken by low ranges 
of stone wall, clumps of sycamores, orchards, hay-stacks, and 
mill-towers ; and over luxuriant clover-beds, tasselled maize, or 
fallow acres, plays, for two thirds of the year, a south-western 
breeze, chastened and moistened by the Gulf Stream. 

Intercourse with Boston was then the chief means on the island 
of acquiring political and domestic news. A brisk trade was 
carried on between the town and the West Indies, France, Eng- 
land, and the Low Countries, cmious memorials of which are still 
visible, in some of the old mansions, in the shape of china and 
glass ware, of obsolete patterns, and faded specimens of rich bro- 
cade. A sturdy breed of Narraganset ponies carried fair eques- 
trians from one to another of the many hospitable dwellings scat- 
tered over the fields, on which browsed sheep and cackled geese. 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 263 

still famous in epicurean reminiscence ; while tropical fiu'ts were 
constantly imported, and an abundance and variety of fish and 
fowl rewarded the most careless sportsman. Thus blessed by 
nature, the accidental home of the philosophic dean soon won his 
affection. Intelligent mepabers of all denominations united in 
admiration of his society and attendance upon his preaching. 
With one neighbor he dined every Sunday, to the child of an- 
other he became god-father, and with a third took counsel for the 
establishment of the literary club, which founded the Redwood 
Library. It was usual then to see the broad brim of the Qua- 
kers in the aisles of Trinity Church : and, as an instance of his 
emphatic yet tolerant style, it is related that he once observed in 
a sermon, '' Give the devil his due : John Calvin was a great 
man." * We find him, at one time, writing a letter of encou]*- 
agement to a Huguenot preacher of Providence, and, at another, 
visiting Narraganset with Smibert to examine the aboriginal 
inhabitants. His own opinion of the race was given in the dis- 
course on ''The Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," 
delivered in London on his return. To the ethnologist it may be 
interesting, in reference to this subject, to revert to the anecdote 
of the portrait-painter cited by Dr. Barton. He had been em- 
ployed by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to paint two or three Si- 
berian Tartars presented to that prince by the Czar of Russia : 
and, on first landing in Narraganset with Berkeley, he instantly 
recognized the Indians there as the same race as the Siberian 
Tartars ; an opinion confirmed by Wolff, the celebrated Eastern 
traveller. 

During his residence at Newport, Berkeley became acquainted 
with the Rev. Jared Elliot, one of the trustees of Yale College, 
and with the Rev. Samuel Johnson, an Episcopal minister of 
Stratford, Connecticut, who informed him of the condition, pros- 
pects, and wants, of that institution. He afterwards opened a cor- 
respondence on the subject with Rector Williams, and was thus 
led, after the failure of his own college scheme, to make his gen- 
erous donations to a seminary already established. He had pre- 
viously presented the college with a copy of his writings. In 

* Updike's History of the Narraganset Church. 



264 THE CHRISTIAN PIIILOSOPIIEPw. 

1732, he sent from England a deed of his farm in Rhode Island, 
and, the conditions and descriptions not being satisfactory, he sent 
the ensuing year another deed, by which it was provided that the 
rents of his lands should be devoted to the education of three 
young men, the best classical scholurs; the candidates to be 
examined annually, on the sixth of May; in case of disagree- 
ment among the examiners, the competitors to decide by lot ; and 
all surplus funds to be used for the purchase of classical books. 
Berkeley also gave to the library a thousand volumes, which cost 
over four hundred pounds, — the most valuable collection of books 
then brought together in America. They were chiefly his own 
purchase, but in part contributed by his friends. One of the 
graduates of Yale, educated under the Berkeley scholarship, 
was Dr. Buckminster, of Portsmouth, N. H. Unfortunately the 
income of the property at New^port is rendered miich less than it 
might be by the terms of a long lease. This liberality of the 
Bishop of Cloyne was enhanced by the absence of sectarian preju- 
dice in his choice for the stewardship of his bounty of a collegiate 
institution where different tenets are inculcated from those he 
professed. That he was personally desirous of increasing his own 
denomination in America, is sufficiently evinced by the letter in 
which he directs the Secretary of the Episcopal Mission there 
to appropriate a balance originally contributed to the Bermuda 
scheme. This sum had remained at his banker's for many years 
unclaimed, and he suggests that part of it should be devoted to a 
gift of books for Harvard University, " as a proper means to 
inform their judgment, and dispose them to think better of our 
church." His interest in classical education on this side of the 
water is also manifested in a letter advocating the preeminence of 
those studies in Columbia College.* 

It is a remarkable coincidence that Berkeley should have taken 
up his abode in Rhode Island, and thus completed the representa- 
tive character of the most tolerant religious community in New 

* " I am glad to find a spirit towards learning prevails in these parts, particu- 
larly in New York, where, you say, a college is projected, which has my best 
wishes. Let the Greek and Latin classics be well taught ; be this the first care as 
to learning." — Berkeley's Letter to Johnson. Moore's Sketch of Columbia 
College. J\^ew York, 1846. 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 265 

England, by the presence of an eminent Episcopal dignitary. A 
principal reason of the variety, the freedom, and the peace of 
religious opinion there, to which he alludes, is the fact that, 
through the liberal wisdom and foresight of Roger Williams, 
that state has become an asylum for the persecuted of all denom- 
inations from the neighboring provinces ; but another cause may 
be found in the prevalence of the Quakers, whose amiable tenets 
and gentle spirit subdued the rancor and bigotry of fanaticism. 
Several hundred Jews, still commemorated by their cemetery 
and synagogue, allured by the prosperous trade and the tolerant 
genius of the place, added still another feature to the varied pop- 
ulation. The lenity of Penn towards the aborigines, and the 
fame of Fox, had given dignity to the denomination of Friends, 
and their domestic culture was refined as well as morally supe- 
rior. Enterprise in the men who, in a neighboring state, origin- 
ated the whale-fishery, and beauty among the women of that sect, 
are traditional in Rhode Island. We were reminded of Berke- 
ley's observations, in regard to the natural productions of the 
country, during a recent visit to the old farm-house where he 
resided. An enormous wild grape-vine had completely veiled 
what formed the orio!;inal entrance to the humble dwellins;. and 
several ancient apple-trees in the orchard, with boughs mossy 
with time, and gnarled by the ocean gales, showed, in their sparse 
fruit and matted twigs, the utter absence of the pruning-knife. 
The dwelling itself is built, after the manner common to farm- 
houses a century ago, entirely of wood, with low ceilings, broad 
fire-place, and red cornice. The only traces of the old country 
were a few remaining tiles, with obsolete designs, around the 
chimney-piece. But the deep and crystal azure of the sea 
gleamed beyond corn-field and sloping pasture ; sheep grazed in 
the meadows, hoary rocks bounded the prospect, and the mellow 
crimson of sunset lay warm on grass slope and paddock, as when 
the kindly philosopher mused by the shore with Plato in hand, 
or noted a metaphysical dialogue in the quiet and ungamished 
room which overlooks the rude garden. Though, as he declares, 
" for every private reason," he preferred " Derry to New Eng- 
land," pleasant was the abode, and grateful is the memory of 
Berkeley, in this rural seclusion. A succession of green breast- 
23 



266 THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER. 

Avorks along the brow of the hill beneath which his domicile 
nestles, bj reminding the visitor of the retreat of the American 
forces under General Sullivan, brings vividly to his mind the 
Revolution and its incalculable influence upon the destinies of a 
land which so early won the intelligent sympathy of Berkeley ; 
while the name of Whitehall, which he gave to this peaceful 
domain, commemorates that other revolution in his own country, 
wherein the loyalty of his grandfather drove his family into 
exile. But historical soon yield to personal recollections, when 
we consider the memorials of his sojourn. We associate this 
landscape with his studies and his benevolence ; and, when the 
scene was no longer blessed with his presence, his gifts remained 
to consecrate his memory. In old Tiinity, the organ he bestowed 
peals over the grave of his first-born in the adjoining burial- 
ground. A town in Massachusetts bears his name. Not long 
since a presentation copy of his '''Minute Philosopher" was kept 
on the table of an old lady of Newport, with reverential care. 
In one family his gift of a richly wrought silver coffee-pot, and 
in another that of a diamond ring, are cherished heirlooms. His 
rare and costly books were distributed, at his departure, among 
the resident clergy. His scholarship at New Haven annually 
furnishes recruits to our church, bar. or medical faculty. In au 
adjacent parish the sacramental cup was his donative. His leg- 
acy of ingenious thoughts and benign sentiment is associated 
with hanging rocks that are the seaward boundary of his farm ; 
his Christian ministry with the ancient church, and his verse with 
the progress of America. 



THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS 

GIACOMO LEOPARDI. 



Provincial life in Italy can scarcely be realized by an Amer- 
ican except through observation. However remote from cities, 
or sequestered in location, a town may be in this country, if not 
connected with the great world by railroad and telegraph, the 
newspaper, the political representative, and an identity of feeling 
and action in some remote enterprise or interest, keep alive 
mutual sympathy and intelligence. But a moral and social as 
well as physical isolation belongs to the minor towns of the Ital- 
ian peninsula. The quaint old stone houses enclose beings whose 
existence is essentially monastic, whose knowledge is far behind 
the times, and whose feelings are rigidly confined within the lim- 
its of family and neighborhood. A more complete picture of still 
life in the nineteenth century it is difficult to imagine, than many 
of these secluded towns present. The dilapidated air of the pal- 
aces, the sudden gloom of the narrow streets, as one turns into 
them from the square, where a group of idlers in tattered cloaks 
are ever engaged in a game or a gossip, the electrical effect of a 
travelling carriage, or a troop of soldiers invading the quiet scene, 
at once inform even the casual visitor of the distance he is at 
from the spirit of the age. With the decayed air of the private 
houses, their w^orn brick floors and primitive furniture, contrast 
impressively the extensive and beautiful view usually obtainable 
from the highest windows, and the architectural magnificence of 
the church. We are constantly reminded that modern ameliora- 



268 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

tion has not yet invaded the regioa ; while the petty objects to 
which even the better class are devoted, the importance attached 
to the most frivolous details of life, the confined views and micro- 
scopic jealousies or dilettante tastes that prevail, assure us that 
liberal curiosity and enlarged sympathy find but little scope in 
these haunts of a nation devoid of civil life, and thrust upon the 
past for mental nourishment. 

It is, however, comparatively easy to imagine the influence of 
such an environment upon a superior intelligence. Recoiling 
from the attempt to find satisfaction in the external, thus re- 
pressed and deadened, the scholar would there naturally turn to 
written lore with a singular intensity of purpose ; the aspirant 
would find little to tempt him from long and sustained flights 
into the ideal world; and the thinker would cling to abstract 
truth w^ith an energy more fond and concentrated from the very 
absence of all motive and scope for action and utterance. It is 
thus that we account, in part, for the remarkable individuality 
and lonely career of Giacomo Leopardi, one of the greatest schol- 
ars and men of genius modern Italy has produced. He has left 
a glimpse of this monotonous and ungenial life in one of his 
poems — La Vita SoUtaria : 

" La mattutina pioggia, allor che I'al 
Battendo esulta nella chiusa stanza 
Le gallinella ed al balcon s'aflfaccia 
"" L'abitator de'campi, e il Sol che nasce 

I suoi tremuli rai f ra le cadenti 
Stille saetta, alia capanna mia 
Dolcemente picchiando, mi risveglia ; 
E sorgo, e i lieyi nugoletti, e il primo 
Degli augelli susurro, e 1' aura fresca, 
E le ridenti piagge benedico ; 
Poiche vol, cittadine infauste mura, 
Vidi e conobbi assai, la dove segnie 
Odio al dolor compagno ; e doloroso 
Lo vivo, e tal morro, deh tosto ! Alcxma 
Benche scarsa pieta pur mi diinostra 
Natura in questi loohi, un giorno ob quanto 
Verso me piu cortese." 

Leopardi was the son of a count, whose estates are situated at 
Eecanti, in the March of Ancona ; and here his early youth was 



GIACOMO LEOPARDI. 269 

passed chiefly in his father's library, which consisted wholly of 
theological and classical books. After being taught Latin and 
the elements of philosophy by two priests, he seems to have been 
left to pursue his own course ; and, at ten years old, he describes 
himself as having commenced a wild and desperate life of study, 
the result of which was a mastery of ancient classic and church 
literature, not only displayed in positive knowledge, but repro- 
duced habitually in the form of translations and commentaries. 
Greek is little cultivated in Italy, and in this, as well as other 
branches of learning, he was quite isolated. In seven years his 
health was completely ruined by unremitted mental application. 
Niebuhr and Angelo Mai soon recognized him as a philologist of 
remarkable acumen and attainment; and laudatory articles in 
the French, German, and Holland journals, as well as compli- 
mentary letters from distinguished men, found their way to his 
secluded home. He duped scholars by tricks like those of Mac- 
pherson and Chatterton, in the pretended translation of an Hellenic 
fragment ; he engaged in a literary correspondence with Monti 
and Gioberti ; wrote able commentaries on the rhetoricians of the 
first and second centuries, annotations on the chronicle of Euse- 
bius; invented new narratives of martyrdoms that passed for 
genuine ; translated parts of the Odyssey, Epictetus, and Soc- 
rates ; and, in fact, performed Herculean labors of research and 
criticism. 

But the most remarkable feature of his life is the contrast 
between its profound scholarship and its domestic environment. 
During this period Leopardi was treated like a child, kept at 
home by poverty, utterly destitute of companionship, except what 
he found in an occasional disputation with the Jews of Ancona ; 
wretched in appearance, consumed by melancholy, struggling 
with his f ither against the project to dedicate him to the church ; 
without sympathy from his kind, or faith in his Creator, or joy 
in his youth, or hope in his destiny. He only found temporary 
solace when ccrnsciousness was absorbed in his studious vigils, in 
the solitary library of a forlorn palace in that secluded town. 
Such is an epitome of Leopardi's youth. Of his works thus pro- 
duced there are but few and imperfect copies, many being still 
unedited; and his peculiar genius would be faintly revealed to 
23=* 



270 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

us, had it not found more direct and pertsonal expression in a fuw 
sincere and highly finished original writings, which shadow forth 
and embody, with singular eloquence, the life and the nature of 
the man. 

Leopardi was born at Recanti, on the twenty-ninth of June,* 
1798, and died at Naples, on the fourteenth of June, 1837. The 
restraint under which he lived, partly that of circumstances, and 
partly of authority, both exerted upon a morbidly sensitive and 
lonely being, kept him in his provincial birthplace until the age 
of twenty-four. After this period he sought a precarious subsist- 
ence in Eome, Florence^ Bologna, and Naples. Of the conscious 
aim he proposed to himself as a scholar, we may judge by his own 
early declaration : " Mediocrity frightens me ; my wish is to love, 
and become great by genius and study." In regard to the first 
desire, he seems, either from an unfortunate personal appearance, 
or from having been in contact with the insincere and the vain, 
to have experienced a bitter disappointment ; for the craving for 
sympathy, and the praise of love, continually find expression in 
his writings, while he says of women, " L'ambizione, I'interesso, 
la perfidia. I'insensibilitd delle donne che io definisco un animale 
senza cuore, sono cose che mi spaventano." He translated, with 
great zest, the satire of Simonides on women. Elsewhere, how- 
ever, there is evinced a remarkable sensibility to female attrac- 
tions, and indications appear of gratified, though interrupted, 
affinities. Indeed, we cannot but perceive that Leopardi belongs 
to that rare class of men whose great sense of beauty and ' ' neces- 
sity of loving " is united with an equal passion for truth. It 
was not, therefore, because his taste was too refined, or his stand- 
ard too ideal, that his afiections were baffled, but on account of 
the extreme rarity of that sacred union of loveliness and loyalty, 
of grace and candor, of the beautiful and the true, which, to the 
thinker and the man of heart, alone justifies the earnestness of 
love. 

Nature vindicated herself, as she ever will, even in his cour- 
ageous attempt to merge all youthful impulse in the pursuit of 
knowledge, and twine around abstract truth the clinging sensibili- 
ties that covet a human object. He became, indeed, a master of 
lore, he lived a scholar, he kept apart from the multitude, and 



GIACOMO LEOPARDI. 271 

enacted the stoical thinker ; but the ungratified portion of his 
soul bewailed her bereavement ; from his harvest- fields of learn- 
ing went up the cry of famine : a melancholy tone blended with 
his most triumphant expositions ; and an irony that ill conceals 
moral need underlies his most vivacious utterance. 

In his actual life Leopardi confesses himself to have been 
greatly influenced by prudential motives. There was a reserve 
in his family intercourse, which doubtless tended to excite his 
thoughts and feelings to a greater private scope ; and he accord- 
ingly sought in fancy and reflection a more bold expansion. His 
scepticism has been greatly lamented as the chief source of his 
hopelessness ; and the Jesuits even ventured to assert his final 
conversion, so important did they regard the accession of such a 
gifted name to the roll of the church ; but his friend, Ranieri, in 
whose arms he died, only tells us that he " resigned his exalted 
spirit with a smile." He presents another instance of the futility 
of attempting to graft religious belief externally, and by prescrip- 
tive means, upon a free, inquiring, and enthusiastic mind. Chris- 
tianity, as practically made known to Leopardi, failed to enlist 
his sympathies, from the erroneous form in which it was revealed, 
while, speculatively, its authority seemed to have no higher sanc- 
tion than the antique philosophy and fables wit^i which he was 
conversant. Had he learned to consider religion as a sentiment, 
inevitable and divine ; had he realized it in the same way as he 
did love — as an experience, a feeling, a principle of the soul, 
and not a technical system, it would have yielded him both com- 
fort and inspiration. 

Deformed, with the seeds of decay in his very frame, familiar 
with the history, the philosophy, the languages, of the earth, 
reflective and susceptible, loving and lonely, erudite, but without 
a faith, young in years, but venerable in mental life, he found 
nothing, in the age of transition in which he lived, to fix and 
harmonize his nature. His parent was incapable of comprehend- 
ing the mind he sought to control. Sympathy with Greece and 
Rome, compassion for Italy, and despair of himself, were the 
bitter fruits of knowledge unillumined by supernal trust. He 
says the inesplicabile mistero dell ^universo weighed upon his 
soul. He longed to solve the problem of life, and tried to believe, 



272 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

with Byron, that '' everything is naught " — tiitto e nulla ; and* 
•wrote, la calamitd e la sola cosa cite vi convevr/a essendo vir- 
tuoso. Nostra vita^ he asks, che val? solo a sprofjlarla. He 
thought too much to be happy without a centre of light about 
which his meditations could hopefully revolve ; he felt too much 
to be tranquil without some reliable and endeared object to which 
he might confidently turn for solace and recognition. The facts 
of his existence are meagre ; the circle of his experience limited, 
and his achievements as a scholar give us no clue to his inward 
life ; but the two concise volumes of prose and verse are a genu- 
ine legacy ; a reflection of himself amply illustrative to the dis- 
criminating reader. 

As regards the diction of Leopardi, it partakes of the superi- 
ority of his mind and the individuality of his character. Versed, 
as he was, both in the vocabulary and the philosophy of ancient 
and modern languages, he cherished the highest appreciation of 
his native tongue, of which he said it was sempre injinita. He 
wrote slowly, and with great care. In poetry, his first concep- 
tion was noted, at once, and born in an access of fervor ; but he 
was employed, at intervals, for weeks, in giving the finishing 
touches to the shortest piece. It is, indeed, evident that Leopardi 
gave to his deliberate compositions the essence, as it were, of his 
life. No one would imagine his poems, except from their lofty 
and artistic style, to be the effusions of a great scholar, so sim- 
ple, true, and apparently unavoidable, are the feelings they 
embody. It is this union of severe discipline and great erudition 
with the glow, the directness, and the natur^ sentiment, of a 
young poet, that constitutes the distinction of Leopardi. The 
reflective power, and the predominance of the thoughtful element 
in his writings, assimilate him rather with German and English 
than moclcrn Italian literature. There is nothing desultory and 
superficial : vigor of thought, breadth and accuracy of knowledge, 
and the most serious feeling, characterize his works. 

His taste was manly, and formed altogether on the higher 
models. In terse energy he often resembles Dante ; in tender and 
pensive sentiment, Petrarch ; in philosophical tone he manifested 
the Anglo-Saxon spirit of inquiry and psychological tendency of 
Bacon and Coleridge ; thus singularly combining the poetic and 



GIACOMO LEOPAEDI. 273 

the erudite, grave research and fanciful speculation, deep wisdom 
and exuberant love. Of late Italian writers, perhaps no one 
more truly revives the romantic associations of her literature ; 
for Leopardi " learned in suffering what he taught in song," as 
exclusively as the "grim Tuscan" who described the world of 
spirits. His life was shadowed by a melancholy not less pervad- 
ing tban that of Tasso ; and, since Laura's bard, no poet of the 
race has sung of love with a more earnest beauty. He has been 
well said to have passed a " life of thought with sorrow beside 
him." The efflorescence of that life is concentrated in his 
verse, comparatively limited in quantity, but proportionally 
intense in expression; and the views, impressions, fancies, and 
ideas, generated by his studies and experience, we may gather 
from his prose, equally concise in form and individual in spirit. 
From these authentic sources we will now endeavor to infer the 
characteristics of his genius. 

His faith, or rather his want of faith, in life and human des- 
tiny, is clearly betrayed in his legend or allegory, called Storia 
del Genere Umano. According to this fable, Jove created the 
world infinitely less perfect than it now exists, with obvious 
limits, undiversified by water and mountains ; and over it man 
roved without impediment, childlike, truthful, and living wholly 
in the immediate. Upon emerging from this adolescent condition, 
however, the race, wearied by the monotony and obvious bounds 
to their power and enjoyment, grew dissatisfied. Satiety took the 
place of contentment, and many grew desperate, loathing the 
existence in which they originally rejoiced. This insensibility to 
the gifts of the gods was remedied by introducing the elements 
of diversity and suggestiveness into the face of nature and the 
significance of life. The night was made brilliant by stars ; 
mountains and valleys alternated in the landscape ; the atmos- 
phere, from a fixed aspect, became nebulous and crystalline by 
turns. Nature, instead of ministering only to vitality and 
instinctive enjoyment, was so arranged and developed as con- 
stantly to excite imagination and act upon sympathy. Echo was 
born, at this time, to startle with mysterious responses ; and 
di;e;ims first invaded the domain of sleep, to prolong the illu- 
sive agencies thus instituted to render human life more tolerable. 



274 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

By these means Jove awakened to consciousness ihe soul, and 
increased the charities and the grace of existence through a sense 
of the grand and beautiful. This epoch was of longer duration 
than that which preceded it ; and the weary and hackneyed 
spirits once more realized enjoyment in experiencing the same 
vivid impressions and zest of being which had marked the prim- 
itive era. But, at length, this warfare between the real and 
ideal, this successive interchange of charming delusion and stem 
fact that made up existence, wore upon the moral energies, and so 
fatigued the spirits of men, that it gave rise to the custom, once 
prevalent among our progenitors, of celebrating as a festival the 
death of friends. Impiety was the final result of this period in 
the history of the race. Life became perverted, and human 
nature shorn of its original beauty. This fallen condition the 
gods punished by the flood of Deucalion. Admonished to repair 
the solitude of the earth, he and Pyrrha, though disdainful of 
life, obeyed the command, and threw stones behind them to restore 
the species. Jove, admonished by the past of the essential nature 
of man, that it is impossible for him, like other animals, to live 
happily in a state of freedom from evil, always desiring the 
impossible, considered by what new arts it was practicable to keep 
alive the unhappy race. These he decided were first to mingle 
in his life real evils, and then to eno-age him in a thousand 
avocations and labors, in order to divert him as much as possible 
from communing with his own nature, or, at least, with the 
desire of the unattained. He, therefore, sent abroad many dis- 
eases and misfortunes, wishing, by the vicissitudes of mortal life, 
to obviate satiety, and increase, by the presence of evil, tlie 
relish of good: to soften the ferocity of man, to reduce his 
power, and lead him to succumb to necessity, and to temper the 
ardor of his desires. 

Besides suth benefits, he knew that, when there is room for 
hope, the unhappy are less inclined to do violence to themselves, 
and that the gloom of disaster thus illumined is endurable. 
Accordingly, he created tempests, armed them with thunder and 
lightning, gave IN'eptune his trident, whirled comets into space, 
and ordaiiied eclipses. By these and other terrible phases of the 
elements, he desired to excite a wholesome awe, knowing that the 



GIACOMO LEOPARDI. 275 

presence of danger will reconcile to life, for a time at least, not 
only the unhappy, but those who most abominate it. To exclude 
the previous satiety, he induced in mankind appetites for new 
gratifications, not to be obtained without toil ; and whereas, before 
the flood, water, herbs, and fruit, sufficed for nourishment, now 
food and drink of great variety and elaborate preparation became 
a necessity. Until then, the equality of temperature rendered 
clothing useless ; the inclemency of the weather now made it 
indispensable. 

He ordered Mercury to found the first city, and divide the 
race into nations, tongues, and people, sowing discord among 
them. Thus laws were originated and civil life instituted. He 
then sent among men certain sentiments, or superhuman phan- 
tasms of most excellent semblance, such as Justice, Virtue, Glory, 
and Patriotism, to mould, quicken, and elevate society. The 
fruit of this revolution was admirable. Notwithstanding the 
fatigues, alarms, and griefs, previously unknown to our race, it 
excelled, in sweetness and convenience, its state before the 
deluge ; and this effect was owing mainly to the phantasms or 
ideas before alluded to, which inspired poets and artists to the 
highest efforts, and to which many cheerfully sacrificed their 
lives. This greatly pleased Jove, who justly thought that men 
would value life in proportion as they were disposed to yield it in 
a noble cause. Indeed, this order of things, even when super- 
seded after many centuries, retained its supremacy so well that, 
up to a time not very distant from the present, the maxims founded 
upon it were in vogue. 

Again, the insatiable desires of man alienated him from the will 
of the gods. Unsatisfied with the scope given to imaginative 
enjoyment, he now pleaded for Truth. This unreasonable exac- 
tion angered Jupiter, who, however, determined to punish im- 
portunity by grantmg the demand. To the remonstrances of 
the other deities he replied by describing the consequences of the 
gift. It will, he assured them, destroy many of the attractive 
illusions of life, disenchant perception, and forever chasten the 
fervor of desire ; for Truth is not to mortals what she is to divin- 
ities. She makes clear the beatitude of the one, but the misery 
of the other, by revealing the conditions of their fate, the preca- 



276 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

rious nature of their enjoyments, and the deceptive character of 
human pursuits. The long-sought blessings thus proved to the 
multitude a bane ; for, in this new order of things, the semblance 
of the infinite no longer yielded satisfaction, but aggravated the 
soul, created weariness, longing, and aspiration. Under the 
dominion of Truth, universality supervened among men, land- 
marks lost their distinctness, nations intermingled, and the 
motives to earnest love or hate became few and tame. Life thus 
gradually lost its original interest and significance to human 
consciousness, and its essential value was so greatly diminished 
as to awaken the pity of the gods at the forlorn destiny of the 
race 

Jove heard their intercession benignly, and consented to the 
prayer of Love that she might descend to the earth. The 
gentle daughter of the celestial Yenus thus preserved the only 
vestige of the ancient nobility of man. Often before had men 
imagined that she dwelt among them ; but it was only her 
counterfeit. Not until humanity came under the dominion of 
Truth, did Love actually vouchsafe her genuine presence, and 
then only for a time, for she could not be long spared from 
heaven. So unworthy had mankind become, that few hearts 
were found fit to receive the angelic guest, and these she filled 
with such noble and sweet emotions, such high and consistent 
moral energy, as to revive in them the life of the beatific era. 
This state, when realized, so nearly approached the divine, that 
Jove permitted it to but few, and at long intervals. By this 
means, however, the grand primeval sentiments were kept in rela- 
tion with man, the original sacred fire remained unextinguished, 
and the glorious imaginings and tender charms of humanity yet 
lingered to nourish a sublime faith and infinite hope. The 
majority, however, continued insensible to this redeeming element, 
and profaned and ignorantly repudiated it ; yet it ceased not to 
hallow, exalt, and refine, the weary, sated, and baffled soul of man. 

Such is a meagre outline of the allegory which shadows forth 
Leopardi's views of life. It would appear that he recognized no 
sign of promise in the firmament of existence, radiant as it was 
to his vision with the starry light of knowledge, but the rainbow 
of Love, upon which angels seemed to ascend and descend — the 



GIACO MO LEOPARD I. 277 

one glowing link between earth and the sky. the bridge spanning 
the gulf of time, the arc made up of the tears of earth and the 
light of heaven. 

In a note to this fable, he protests against having had any 
design to run a philosophical tilt against either the Mosaic tradi- 
tion or the evangelists ; but it is evident that he did aim to utter 
the convictions which his own meditations and personal experi- 
ence had engendered. Nor is the view thus given of the signifi- 
cance and far-reaching associations of human love, when conse- 
crated by sentiment and intensified by intelligence, so peculiar 
as might appear from his manner of presenting it. In Plato, 
Dante, and Petrarch, in all the higher orders of poets and philoso- 
phers, we find a divine and enduring principle recognized under 
the same guise. The language in which Leopardi expresses his 
faith on the subject is not less emphatic than graceful : "Qualora 
viene in sulla terra, sceglie i cuori piu teneri e piu gentili delle 
persone piu generose e magnanime ; e quivi siede per alcun breve 
spazio ; diffondendovi si pellegrina e mirabile soavita, ed empien- 
doli di afietti si nobili, e di tanta virtu e fortezza, che eglino 
allora provano, cosa al tutto nuova nel genere umano, pinttosto 
veritd che rassomiglianza di beatitudine." 

The satire of Leopardi is pensive rather than bitter ; it is 
aimed at general, not special error, and seems inspired far more 
by the sad conviction of a serious mind than the ascerbity of a 
disappointed one. In the dialogue between Fashion and Death, 
the former argues a near relationship and almost identity of pur- 
pose with the latter ; and the folly and unwholesome efiects of 
subservience to custom are finely satirized, in naively showing 
how the habits she induces tend to shorten life and multiply the 
victims of disease. So in the proposal of premiums by an imag- 
inary academy, the mechanical spirit of the age is wittily rebuked 
by the offer of prizes to the inventor of a machine to enact the 
office of a friend, without the alloy of selfishness and disloyalty 
which usually mars the perfection of that character in its human 
form. Another prize is offered for a machine that will enact mag- 
nanimity, and another for one that will produce women of unper- 
verted conjugal instincts. The imaginary conversation between 
a sprite and a gnome is an excellent rebuke to self-love; and 

24: 



278 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

that between Malambruno and Farfarello emphatically indicates 
the impossibility of obtaining happiness through will, or the 
agency even of superior intelligence. Leopardi's hopelessness is 
clearly shown in the dialogue of Nature and a Soul, wherein the 
latter refuses the great endowments offered because of the inev- 
itable attendant suffering. In the Earth and Moon's interview, 
we have an ingenious satire upon that shallow philosophy which 
derives all the data of truth from individual consciousness and 
personal experience. 

One of the most quaint and instructive of these colloquies is 
that between Federico Ruysch and his mummies, in which the 
popular notion of the pain of dying is refuted by the alleged 
proof of experience. The mummies, in their midnight song, 
declare the condition of death to be lieta 710^ ma sicura. Phys- 
iologically considered, all pleasure is declared to be attended with 
a certain languor. Burke suggests the same idea in reference to 
the magnetical effects of beauty on the nervous system ; and this 
agreeable state is referred to by the mummies to give their inquis- 
itive owner an idea of the sensation of dying. The philosophy 
of this subject, the vague and superstitious fears respecting it, 
have recently engaged the attention of popular medical writers ; 
but the essential points are clearly unfolded in this little dialogue 
of Leopardi. 

In his essay entitled Detti Memorabili di Fillppo Ottoyiieri^ 
we have apparently an epitome of his own creed ; at least, the 
affinity between the maxims and habits here described and those 
which, in other instances, he acknowledges as personal, is quite 
obvious. Ottonieri is portrayed as a man isolated in mind and 
sympathies, though dwelling among his kind. He thought that 
the degree in which individuality of life and opinion in man was 
regarded as eccentric might be deemed a just standard of civiliza- 
tion ; as, the more enlightened and refined the state of society, 
the more such originality was respected and regarded as natural. 
He is described as ironical ; but the reason for this was that he 
was deformed and unattractive in person, like Socrates, yet 
created to love ; and, not being able to win this highest gratifica- 
tion, so conversed as to inspire both fear and esteem. He culti- 
vated wisdom, and tried to console himself with friendship : more- 



GIACOMOLEOPARDI. 279 

over, his irony was not sdegnosa ed acerba^ ma rli^osala c 
dolce. 

He was of opinion that the greatest delights of existence are 
illusions, and that children find everything in nothing, and 
adults nothing in everything. He compared pleasure to odors, 
which usually promised a satisfaction unrealized by taste ; and 
said, of some nectar-drinking bees, that they were blest in not 
understanding their own happiness. He remarked that want of 
consideration occasioned far more suffering than positive and 
intentional cruelty, and that one who lived a gregarious life 
would utter himself aloud when alone, if a fly bit him ; but one 
accustomed to solitude and inward life woijld often be silent in 
company, though threatened with a stroke of apoplexy. He 
di\aded mankind into two classes — those whose characters and 
instincts are overlaid and moulded by conformity and convention- 
alism, and those whose natures are so rich or so strong as to 
assert themselves intact and habitually. He declared that, in 
this age, it was impossible for any one to love without a rival : 
for the egotist usually combined with and struggled for suprem- 
acy against the lover in each indi\adual. He considered delusion 
a requisite of all human enjoyment, and thought man, like tlie 
child who from a sweet-rimmed chalice imbibed the medicine. 
according to Tasso's simile, e daV inganno sus vita riceve. In 
these, and many other ideas attributed to Ottonieri, we recognize 
the tone of feeling and the experience of Leopardi ; and the 
epitaph with which it concludes breathes of the same melancholy, 
but intelligent and aspiring nature : ^^Nato alle opere virtuose e 
alia gloria, vissiito ozioso e disiitile, e niorio sensa fama non 
ignaro delta natura m delta fortitna sua.''\ 

The Wager of Prometheus is a satire upon civilization, in 
which a cannibal feast, a Hindoo widow's sacrifice, and a suicide 
in London, are brought into vivid and graphic contrast. To 
exhibit the fallacy which estimates life, merely as sjich, a bless- 
ing, and to show that it consists in sensitive and moral experi- 
ence rather than in duration, as color is derived from light, and 
not from the objects of which it is but a quality, he gives us an 
animated and discriminating argument between a metaphysician 
and a materialist ; and, in illustration of the absolute mental 



280 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

nature of happiness ^vhen closely analyzed, he takes us to the cull 
of Tasso, where a most characteristic and suggestive discussion 
takes place between him and his familiar genius. The tyianny 
of Nature, her universal and inevitable laws, unredeemed, to 
Leopardi's view, by any compensatory spiritual principle, is dis- 
phiyed in an interview between her and one of her discontented 
subjects, wherein she declares man's felicity an oljject of entire 
indifference ; her arrangements having for their end only the pres- 
ervation of the universe by a constant succession of destruction 
and renovation. 

His literary creed is emphatically recorded in the little treatise 
on Parini o vero della Gloria ; and it exliibits him as a true 
nobleman in letters, although the characteristic sadness of his 
mind is evident in his severe estimate of the obstacles which 
interfere with the recognition of an original and earnest writer ; 
for to this result, rather than fame, his argument is directed. As 
a vocation, he considers authorship unsatisfactory, on account of 
its usual effect, when sedulously pursued, upon the animal econ- 
omy. He justly deems the capacity to understand and sympathize 
with a great writer extremely rare ; the preoccupation of society 
in the immediate and the personal, the inundation of books in 
modern times, the influence of prejudice, ignorance, and narrow- 
ness of mind, the lack of generous souls, mental satiety, frivolous 
tastes, decadence of enthusiasm and vigor in age, and impatient 
expectancy in youth, are among the many and constant obstacles 
against which the individual who appeals to his race, through 
books, has to contend. He also dwells upon the extraordinary 
influence of prescriptive opinion, wedded to a few antique exam- 
ples, upon the literary taste of the age. He considers the secret 
power of genius, in literature, to exist in an indefinable charm of 
style almost as rarely appreciated as it is exercised; and he 
thinks great writing only an inevitable substitute for great action, 
the development of the heroic, the beautiful, and the true in lan- 
guage, opinion, and sentiment, which under propitious circum- 
stances would have been embodied, with yet greater zeal, in deeds. 
He thus views the art in which he excelled, in its most disinter- 
ested and noblest relations. 

There is great naturalness, and a philosophic tone, in the 



GIACOMO LEOPARDI. 281 

interview between Columbus and one of bis companions, as they 
approach the New World. In the Eulogy on Birds, it is touch- 
ing to perceive the keen appreciation Leopardi had of the joyous 
side of life, his complete recognition of it as a phase of nature, 
and his apparent unconsciousness of it as a state of feeling. The 
blithe habits of the feathered creation, their vivacity, motive 
power, and jocund strains, elicit as loving a commentary as 
Audubon or Wilson ever penned ; but they are described only to 
be contrasted with the hollow and evanescent smiles of his own 
species ; and the brief illi^sions they enjoy are pronounced more 
desirable than those of such singers as Dante and Tasso. to whom 
imagination was d, funestissiTna dote, ejjrincipio di soUecitiidinl, 
e angosce gravissime e 'perpetue. With the tokens of his rare 
intelligence and sensibility before us, it is aifecting to read his 
wish to be converted into a bird, in order to experience a while 
their contentment and joy. 

The form of these writings is peculiar. We know of no Eng- 
lish prose work at all similar, except the Imaginary Conversations 
of Landor, and a few inferior attempts of a like character. But 
there is one striking distinction between Leopardi and his classic 
English prototype ; the former's aim is always to reproduce the 
opinions and modes of expression of his characters, while the 
latter " chiefly gives utterance to his own. This disguise was 
adopted, we imagine, in a degree, from prudential motives. Con- 
scious of sentiments at variance with the accepted creed, both 
in religion and philosophy, the young Italian recluse summoned 
historical personages, whose memories were hallowed to the 
imagination, or allegorical characters, whose names were asso- 
ciated with the past, and, through their imaginary dialogues, 
revealed his own fancies, meditations, and emotions. In fact, a 
want of sympathy with the age is one of the prominent traits of 
his mind. He was sceptical in regard to the alleged progress of 
the race, had little faith in the wisdom of newspapers, and doubted 
the love of truth for her o-^^n sake, as the master principle of 
modern science and literature. Everywhere he lauds the nega- 
tive. Ignorance is always bliss, and sleep, that "knits up the 
ravelled sleeve of care," the most desirable blessing enjoyed by 
mortals. He scorns compromise with evil, and feels it is "nobler 
24^ 



282 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

in the mind to suffer" than to reconcile itself to error and pain 
through cowardice, illusion, or stupidity. He writes to solace 
himself by expression ; and he writes in a satirical and humorous 
vein, because it is less annoying to others, and more manly in 
itself, than wailing or despair. Thus, Leopardi's misanthropy 
differs from that of Rousseau and Byron in being more intel- 
lectual ; it springs not so much from exasperated feeling as from 
the habitual contemplation of painful truth. Philosophy is rather 
an available medicament to him than an ultimate good. 

Patriotism, learning, despair, and love, are expressed in Leo- 
pard!' s verse with emphatic beauty. There is an antique grandeur, 
a solemn wail, in his allusions to his country, which stirs, and, at 
the same time, melts the heart. This sad yet noble melody is 
quite untranslatable ; and we must content ourselves with an 
earnest reference to some of these eloquent and finished lyrical 
strains. How grand, simple, and pathetic, is the opening of the 
first;. Ar Italia ! 

" patria mia, vedo le mura e gli archi 
E le colonne e i simulacri e I'erme 
Torri degli avi nostri, 
Ma la gloria non vedo, 
Non vedo il lauro e il ferro ond'eran carcH 
I nostri padri antichi. Or fatta inerme 
Nuda la fronte e nudo il petto mostri. 
Oirae quante ferite, 

Che lividor, che sangue ! oh. qual ti veggio, 
Formosisiima donna ! lo chiedo al cielo 
E al mondo : dite, dite, 
Chi la ridusse a tale? E questo e peggio, 
Che di catene ha carche ambe le braccia. 
Si che sparte le chiome e senza yelo 
Siede in terra negletta e sconsalata, 
Nascondendo la faccia 
Tra le ginocchia, e piange." 

In the same spirit are the lines on the MomimeJit to Dante^ 
to whom he says : 

" Beato te che il Mo 

A Tiver non danno fra tanto orrore ; 
Che non yedesti in braccio 
L'itala moglie a barbaro soldato. 
***** 



GIACOMO LEOPARDI. 283 

Non si conviene a si corrotta usanza 
Questa d 'animi eccelsi altrice a scola : 
Se di codardi e stanza, 
Meglio I'e rimaner vedova e sola." 

The poem to Angelo Mai, on his discovery of the Republic of 
Cicero, is of kindred tone — the scholar's triumph blending with 
the patriot's grief An identical vein of feeling, also, we recog- 
nize, under another form, in the poem written for his sister's 
nuptials. Bitterly he depicts the fate of woman in a country 

where 

" Virtii Tiva sprezziam, lodiamo estinta ; '* 

and declares — 

" miseri o codardi 

Figluioli avrai. Miseri eleggi. Immense 

Tra fortuna e valor dissidio pose 

II corrotto costume. Ahi troppo tardi, 

E nella sera dell 'umane cose, 

Acquista oggi chi nasce il moto e il senso." 

Bruto Minore is vigorous in conception, and exquisitely modu- 
lated. In the hymn to the patriarchs, La Primavera^ II Sabato 
del Vllagglo, Alia Ltina, II Passaro Soliiaria, II Canto noi- 
turno d' iin Pastore errante in Asia, and other poems, Leo- 
pardi not only gives true descriptive hints, with tact and fidelity, 
but reproduces the sentiment of the hour, or the scene he cele- 
brates, breathing into his verse the latent music they awaken in 
the depths of thought and sensibility; the rhythm, the words, 
the imagery, all combine to produce this result, in a way analo- 
gous to that by which great composers harmonize sound, or the 
masters of landscape blend colors, giving birth to the magical 
effect which, under the name of tone, constitutes the vital prin- 
ciples of such emanations of genius. 

But not only in exalted patriotic sentiment, and graphic por- 
traiture, nor even in artistic skill, resides all the individuality 
of Leopardi as a poet. Ilis tenderness is as sincere as it is 
manly. There is an indescribable sadness native to his soul, 
quite removed from acrid gloom, or weak sensibility. We 
have already traced it in his opinions and in his life ; but its 
most affecting and impressive expression is revealed in his poetry. 



284 THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS. 

n Primo Amore, La Sera del Di di Festa, II Risorgimento^ 

and other effusions, in a similar vein, are instinct with this deep 
yet attractive melancholy, the offspring of profound thought and 
emotion. ^^Uscir di pena^^'' he sadly declares, "e diletto fra 
noi ; non brillm gli odd se non di pianto ; due cose belle ha 
il mondo : amore e morto.^^ In that most characteristic poem. 
Amove e Morte^ he speaks of the maiden who la gentilezza del 
niorir comprende : 

** Quando novellamente 
Nasce nel cor profondo 
Un amoroso afifetto, 

Languido e stanco insiem con esse in petto 
Un desiderio di morir si sente : 
Come, non so : ma tale 
D' amor vero e possente e il primo effetto ; 
Forse gli occM spaura 
AUor questo deserto : a se la terra 
Forse il mortale inabitabil fatta 
Vede omai senza quella 
Nova, sola, infinita 
Felicita che il suo pensier figura ; 
Ma per cagion di lui grave procella 
Presentendo il suo cor, brama quiete, 
Brama raccorsi in porto 
Dinanzi al fier disio, 
Che gia, rugghiando, intomo, intorno oscura." 



THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE 

DANIEL DE FOE. 



Few of the crowd that throng the old avenues of Cripplegate, 
at the present day, revert to the prophet and thinker born and 
bred there, whose romance has been the household story of two 
great nations, and has been domesticated, as a model narrative, m 
every country of Europe for more than a century. Yet there is 
no name which should be more gratefully honored by a London 
citizen than that of Daniel De Foe. His genius and efficiency 
vindicate the claims even of " a nation of shopkeepers," and turn 
that satire into eulogy. His book has survived the more finished 
writings of the courtly authors who ridiculed him. In literature 
and politics he was essentially a representative man ; in life he 
stood in the front rank of the people, and their universal recogni- 
tion has long since crowned his memory with enduring fame. 

In the great national problem worked out and permanently 
solved by the course of events and the war of opinion, between 
the birth of Puritanism in England and the realization of consti- 
tutional liberty under William of Orange, many illustrious names 
appear identified with the progress of civil and religious freedom. 
In the field, the council, the church, the courts, in society and in 
literature, these noble advocates taught, struggled, endured, and 
often died, in behalf of truths and privileges sacred to humanity. 
Among those who promoted the great end in the noblest way, — 
that is, by appeals to reason, and by assiduous endeavors to en- 
lighten the masses, — no one deserves higher credit than Daniel 



286 THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE. 

De Foe. And yet, hy one of those caprices of fairie, which so 
often astonish us in the history of gifted men, this voluminous 
writer and stanch advocate of human freedom and a progressive 
civic life is chiefly, and, so far as the many are concerned, ex- 
clusively, known as the author of the most popular story in the 
English language. The fierce polemical works upon which the 
vigor of his years was expended, the strange vicissitudes, the 
public services, and the private virtues, of the man De Foe, have 
been lost sight of in the renown of the author of Robinson Cru- 
soe. Indeed, that familiar book, in the popular imagination, is 
rather esteemed as a lucky hit of inventive genius, than as the 
flowering of a mind rendered earnest and fruitful through a life 
of anxious mental toil and relentless persecution. To one thor- 
oughly acquainted with De Foe's career, and aware of his for- 
tunes and achievements, the remarkable fiction which embalms 
his memory has a new and pathetic significance. It was his first 
attempt to enlist his extraordinary powers in a work of pure lite- 
rary art. To write it. he stood aloof from the party strife in 
which, for thirty years, his thoughts had been engaged. Like a 
brave soldier who had returned home from a long but successful 
campaign, with victory achieved, yet no spoils acquired, he seems 
to have laid aside the armor of political and religious warfare, 
cheered only by a sense of duty bravely performed, and then, in 
the autumn of life, the lull of the storm, the pensive twilight of 
honest age, yielded himself to a work prompted by his own idio- 
syncrasies, unmarred by faction, and thoroughly adapted to the 
popular heart. The intrinsic charm of the narrative, therefore, 
is infinitely expanded when thus viewed vfith reference to De 
Foe's circumstances and aims. 

Could the life of this extraordinary man be represented in a 
dramatic form, we should behold him in the utmost extremes of 
social position, each explicable by his course as an author. He 
might be seen the familiar and admired hahitid of a Puritan cofice- 
house, ardently discussing the latest news from the seat of war, 
or the local question of the hour ; alternating between his hosier's 
shop in Cornhill and the Dissenters' chapel at Surrey ; in arms 
for the Duke of Monmouth ; one of the handsomely-mounted 
escort of volunteers who attended William and Mary from White- 



DANIEL DE FOE. 287 

hall to the Mansion House ; a bankrupt refugee, talking with 
Selkirk at the Red Lion Tavern in Bristol : the confidential vis- 
itor ensconced in the cabinet of William of Orange ; the occupant 
of a cell in Newgate ; an honored guest at Edinburgh, promoting 
the Union ; a secret ambassador to the Continent ; the delegate 
of the people, handing to Harlej a mammoth petition ; the cyno- 
sure of a hundred sympathetic and respectful eyes as he stands 
in the pillory; in comfortable retirement at Newington; and at 
last a victim of filial ingratitude, his health wasted in noble intel- 
lectual toil, dying at the age of seventy. Such are a few of the 
strong contrasts which the mere external drama of De Foe's life 
presents. 

To appreciate his course we must vividly recall the events of 
his time and the spirit of his age. As if ordained by Providence 
for a legitimate representative of the English mind, he derived 
his descent from the better class of yeomen : his birthplace was 
the heart of London : and his home was chiefly there at a period 
when its citizenship was a high distinction and privilege, when 
municipal glory had not faded before the splendor of fashion, now^ 
dominant in a region which, in De Foe's time, was suburban, and 
when locomotive facilities had not almost identified town and 
country. One of the people by birth and association, he became 
more intimately related to them through his public spirit, his 
political ideas, and his religious sentiments. These were all 
essentially democratic. The wants of the ignorant many, the 
thirst for social reform, the popular basis of the constitution, and 
the right of free judgment and action in religion, appear to have 
been original instincts rather than mere opinions in the mind of 
De Foe. They were confirmed by the fiimily discipline, the 
non-conformist rites, the simple habits, and the manly self-reli- 
ance, incident to the household of a dissenting London trader of 
that day. 

Although so obviously endowed for the vocation of an author, 
J)e Foe began life as a tradesman. Cut ofi" by his religious asso- 
ciations from any share in a university education, he studied the 
higher academic branches with a preceptor of his own faith, of 
acknowledged scholarship ; and at first designed to adopt the cler- 
ical profession. In his commercial speculations he was unsuccess- 



288 THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE. 

ful, as might have been anticipated ; for his mind was too specu- 
lative to engage prosperously in business, for which, however, he 
was not deficient in talent, as his appointment as secretary, first 
to a glass and then to a brick manufacturing company, suffi- 
ciently proves. His friends also arranged a mercantile enterprise 
for him at Cadiz ; but he yielded to a strong innate conviction 
that his appropriate sphere was England, and his first duty that 
of a writer. Trade, however, while it proved unfortunate as a 
pursuit, elicited character, and yielded valuable lessons. He, 
with rare integrity, paid the balance of his debts, when subse- 
quently enriched, although legally acquitted by a compromise ; 
and his knowledge of the wants, usages, and condition, of the 
" English Tradesman," enabled him to write the useful and sug- 
gestive treatise which bears that title. It gave him also a fund 
of experience ; and we trace in his books a familiarity with human 
nature and London life, that could in few other ways have been 
so authentically gained. While Swift was noting the banquets 
he attended for the diversion of Stella, Steele dodging bailifis in 
his luxurious establishment, Addison, in elegant trim, paying his 
court to the Countess of Warwick, and Bolingbroke embodying 
his heartless philosophy in artificial rhetoric, De Foe was wres- 
tling for truth in Cripplegate. A man of the people, a writer of 
plain, vigorous, unembellished English, there he stood, manfully 
claiming the right of private judgment ; battling to the death 
against the prejudices which interfered with a liberal govern- 
ment ; explaining, with intelligent emphasis, the popular basis of 
the constitution; initiating that philosophy of trade, of social 
economy, of charitable institutions, and of literature, then a bold 
and radical innovation, now, in its varied forms, recognized as the 
evidence of human progress, and the pledge of a glorious future. 
Taste, wit, and refined sensualism, were the dominant traits of the 
acknowledged men of genius in society around him ; privation, 
slander, imprisonment, and ridicule, were the reward of his manly 
self-consecration. His contemporary authors are known to us 
through elaborate and loving memoirs ; their portraits adorn 
noble galleries; scholars still emulate their works, and glorify 
them in reviews ; while their monumental effigies are clustered 
in imposing beauty in the venerable Abbey. Our knowledge of 



D A N I E L D E F E . 289 

De Foe's appearance is chiefly derived from an advertisement 
describing him as a fugitive.* His birth and name have been sub- 
jects of dispute. Of his domestic correspondence we have only a 
letter describing the unfilial improvidence of his son.-|- It is im- 
possible to identify all his works. He is mentioned by the writers 
of his day only in the bitter terms of party hatred ; and his mor- 
tal remains are blended with the martyred dust of Bunhill Fields. 
The political writings of De Foe emphatically define his career 
as an English citizen ; and. although many of them have lost 
their chief interest from the temporary nature of the subjects dis- 
cussed, yet they are all impressive landmarks to indicate the con- 
sistent, fearless, and rational spirit, the indomitable industry, and 
loyalty of purpose, which distinguished his life. With every 

* "Whereas Daniel De Foe, alias De Fooe, is charged with writing a scan- 
dalous and seditious pamphlet, entitled ' The Shortest Way with the Dissenters ;' 
he is a middle-sized, spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, 
and dark brown-colored hair, but wears a wig ; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, 
gray eyes, and a large mole near his mouth ; was born in London, and for many 
years was a hose-factor, in Freeman's yard, in Conahill, and now is owner of the 
brick and pantile works near Tilbury Fort, in Essex. Whoever shall discover 
the said Daniel De Foe to one of her majesty's principal secretaries of state, or 
any of her majesty's justices of the peace, so as he may be apprehended, shall 
have a reward of fifty pounds, which her majesty has ordered immediately to be 
paid on such discovery." — London Gazette, Jan. 10, 1702-3. 

t " But it has been the injustice, unkindness, and, I must say, inhuman dealing 
of my own son, which has both ruined my family, and, in a word, has broken my 
heart ; and, as I am at this time under a very heavj' weight of illness, which I 
think will be a fever, I take this occasion to vent my grief in the breasts who I 
know will make a prudent use of it, and tell you, nothing but this has conquered 
or could conquer me. Et tu. Brute ! I depended upon 'him, I trusted him, I 
gave up my two dear, unprovided children into his hands ; but he has no com- 
passion, and suffers them and their poor dying mother to beg their bread at his 
door, and to crave, as if it were an alms, what he is bound, under hand and 
seal, and by the most sacred promises, to supply them with — himself at the 
same time living in a profusion of plenty. It is too much for me. Excuse my 
infirmity ; I can say no more ; my heart is too full. I only ask one thing of yon 
as a dying request. Stand by them when I am gone, and let them not be wronged 
while he is able to do them right. Stand by them as a brother ; and if you have 
anything within you owing to my memory, who have bestowed on you the best 
gift I had to give, let them not be injured and trampled on by false pretences and 
unnatural reflections. I hope they will want no help but that of comfort and 
counsel ; but that they will indeed want, being too easy to be managed by words 
and promises."— jLe/^er of De Foe to his son-in-law, Mr. Baker, the celebrated 
naturalist. 

25 



290 THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE. 

successive phase of history, every important act of tho govern- 
ment, or significant demonstration by the people, an essay, a 
satire, or an appeal from his ready and earnest pen. gives token 
of vigihmce and enthusiasm. His pamphlets, like alert guerilla 
parties, keep up a running and sometimes isolated, yet none the 
less effective fire, along the line of political combatants. Always 
ranged on the side of popular right and religious liberty, his 
pleas, by their simplicity and good sense, invariably Avon the 
attention of the masses, and irritated the tory faction. Usually 
published anonymously, and often under the disguise of irony or 
quaint allegory, they betrayed a cleverness which even the fash- 
ionable wits could not deny. Thus, by seasonable invective and 
keen satire, De Foe scattered the elements of great political 
truths among the heated minds of his fellow-countrymen, antici- 
pated the progress of popular enlightenment, and furnished the 
ignorant and the oppressed with arguments that sanctioned their 
endeavors. 

It was opposition to the plans of James in regard to the suc- 
cession, and not affinity with the character of Monmouth, that 
enlisted him in the romantic and vain enterprise of the latter. 
To Queen Anne's natural goodness of heart and Harley's secret 
political bias he owed his enfranchisement. His ironical tirade 
against the Hanoverian cause was so utterly misunderstood, that, 
for a while, he suffered persecution as its enemy. But his rela- 
tion to William of Orange was intimate and genuine. The char- 
acter of that monarch was akin to his own. There was between 
them a sympathy of mind; courage, liberal views, and moral 
energy, were alike the characteristics of the author and the king. 
De Foe effectively advanced the measures of his royal patron, and 
was devoted to his cause and his memory. 

If we examine critically his miscellaneous waitings, and refer 
to the dates of important civil and social reforms, his direct agency 
in their achievement will impressively appear. With the fore- 
sight attained only by a lover of truth, he anticipated the great 
improvements of the last and the present century, and often gave 
the first hint of their necessity, or the primal argument for their 
adoption. The superior brilliancy of later writers has kept his 
precedence out of view. Yet there is scarcely a remarkable social 



DANIEL DE FOE. 291 

or literary phenomenon, resulting from the progress of ideas, 
which we cannot trace directly or indirectly ioDe Foe. He was 
a pioneer in the great cause of human advancement, and his name 
should be identified with many of the popular topics and enter- 
prises of our own day. The universal political theme of this 
moment is what is called " the Eastern Question."* The first 
pamphlet of De Foe, written before the age of manhood, was 
devoted to a kindred subject, in which he argued that it was 
'' better that the Popish house of Austria should ruin the Pro- 
testants in Hungary, than that the infidel house of Ottoman 
should ruin both Protestants and Papists." JThe reality of spir- 
itual communications is now a fertile text for tongue and press. 
De Foe's essay on " Apparitions " may not only be read with 
advantage by the credulous and the sceptical, but is a striking 
evidence of the identity of feeling on that subject then and now. 
" Between our ancestors' laying too much stress upon them," he 
says, "and the present age endeavoring wholly to explode and 
despise them, the world seems hardly ever to have come to a 
right understanding." And again : " Spirit is certainly some- 
thing we do not fully understand in our present confined circum- 
stances ; and, as we do not fully understand the thing, so neither 
can we distinguish its operation. Yet, notwithstanding all this, 
it converses here, is with us and among us, corresponds, though 
unembodied, with our spirits, and this conversing is not only by 
an invisible, but to us an inconceivable way," etc. To these 
speculations he brought no ordinary learning and philosophy, and 
while he recognizes the spiritual element in life, he considers it 
with logic, with good sense, and in the light of truth. Constitu- 
tional freedom has been the favorite idea of English and American 
statesmen ; but De Foe's treatise on the " Original Power of the 
Collective Body of the People of England " was one of the first 
and most daring popular expositions of a doctrine that lies at the 
foundation of all free governments. Political economy is gener- 
ally considered a new science ; De Foe's commercial writings, his 
tract entitled "Giving Alms no Charity," and the financial sug- 
gestions thrown out in his " Essay on Projects," anticipate many 
of the axioms of later philosophers in this department. It is to 
the papers in the Spectator that the first appreciation of Milton's 
♦Written in 1854. 



292 THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE. 

poetry is ascribed ; yet seven years before Addison designated the 
sublimities of Paradise Lost, De Foe set forth its author's tran- 
scendent claims. The institution of marriage has been freely 
examined in our day ; De Foe, in his bold reproach of its abuse 
and his eloquent exposition of its religious character, was in 
advance of his times. He was the first effectually to set forth the 
public duty of instituting asylums for the insane and the idiotic, 
of establishing commissioners of bankruptcy, and pensions for the 
indigent. Sydney Smith's humorous appeal is thought by many 
the earliest popular argument for a higher grade of female cul- 
ture ; but at a time when the chivalric element was all but extin- 
guished, and women were treated either as toys, slaves, or idols, 
De Foe became an eloquent and able advocate for the education 
of women. " A woman of sense and manners," he wrote, '•' is 
the finest and most delicate part of God's creation : and it is the 
sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude to withhold from the sex 
the lustre which the advantage of education gives to the natural 
beauty of their minds." One of the most successful of modern 
ruses is the famous " Moon Hoax :'" De Foe, in a political satire, 
developed lunar language, and narrated incidents of lunar ad- 
venture. He recommended the establishment of a society for 
" encouraging polite learning and improving the English lan- 
guage," prior to Swift's celebrated letter to Lord Oxford. The 
most interesting fact, however, of his influence as a thinker, at 
least to our American sympathies, is, that it was the perusal of 
De Foe that aroused the dormant sentiments and quickened the 
mental enterprise of Franklin. " I found, besides," he says in 
his Autobiography, " a work of De Foe's, entitled an ' Essay on 
Projects,' from w-hich, perhaps, I derived impressions that have 
since influenced some of the principal events of my life." His 
zest for new truth, and his recognition of liberal principles, were 
thus confirmed and enlarged, in early youth, by the author of 
Robinson Crusoe. De Foe anticipated the colonial revolt and the 
triumph of freedom in America. He was the predecessor of 
Rousseau as a social reformer. He ably vindicated the right of 
authors to a permanent share in the income of their works. His 
geographical speculations were confirmed by the subsequent dis- 
coveries of Denham and Lander. He was the fiither of periodical 



DANIELDEFOE. 293 

literature ; for his " Review," first planned in Newgate, was the 
harbinger of those popular miscellanies that delighted and 
improved the readers of Queen Anne's day. Nor is this the 
world's only obligation to him in literature. His unprecedented 
and instantly successful fiction originated the English novel, and 
the celebrated authors who have since enchanted us and made 
themselves renowned in this field, all trace back the spells they 
evoke to Daniel De Foe. 

It is a singular coincidence, that the most classical poet and 
the most successful romancer of that period, in England, were the 
sons of butchers. Akenside, born ten years before De Foe's 
de^ith, carried to his grave a memorial of the paternal vocation, 
in regard to which he was morbidly sensitive, in the form of a 
wound that caused him always to limp, received from one of his 
father's cleavers, which was accidentally dropped on the embryo 
poet's foot. Gifford made cruel use of the plebeian occupation 
of the elder Keats, in» his attempt to mortify the sensitive author 
of Hyperion. De Foe, if we may judge by the spirit of his 
writings and the tenor of his life, cheerfully accepted the rank in 
which his lot was cast. He knew the true dignity of human 
nature, and understood that all genuine power and fame originate 
with, or must be sanctioned by, popular sentiment. It was an 
axiom of his to defy the critics, if he could , but have the people 
with him. It may seem to involve no great heroism or perspi- 
cacity so to think and act ; but we must remember that De Foe 
thus reasoned at a time when the* London Gazette, with its 
meagre seiiii-weekly announcement of court news, constituted 
journalism ; Avhen Baxter's voice was hushed in prison, and when 
our brave author himself had barely escaped the fangs of Jeffreys, 
to endure the long torture of inveterate proscription. 

With the virtues De Foe combined the prejudices of the non- 
conformists. He expresses an unreasonable contempt for May- 
poles and the theatre ; but we must not forget that it was against 
the profligate levity ushered in by the Restoration, of which these 
and similar pastimes were emblems, rather than against amuse- 
ment as such, that his indig-nation was levelled. De Foe and his 
colleagues deeply felt their responsibleness to the noble cause in 
Avhich they were engaged. A battle was to be waged, a great 
25* 



294 THE ^Y R I T E R FOR THE PEOPLE. 

national reform wrought ; politics and religion, freedom and civil 
progress, were to them, in a great measure, identical ; the social 
exigencies of the times impressed them too keenly to admit of con- 
vivial enjoyment. In a word, they were in earnest, and such is 
not the mood in which mere pleasure-seeking can be tolerated. 
Yet De Foe wonderfully preserved his candor and self-respect in 
the heat of controversy; and boasts with reason, that, whilo 
engaged in satirizing his opponents, he never used their personal 
misfortunes or infirmities to make •' the galled jade wince." He 
early acquired the lessons of self-discipline, and bore himself with 
prowess, but in a calm and self-reliant manner. " In the school 
of affliction," he says, "I have learned more than at the acad- 
emy, and more divinity than from the pulpit." 

De Foe's career as an author was quite as remarkable for its 
versatility as for its extent. Besides the hundred and thirty- 
three political works identified as hisj during the reigns of Anne 
and George, we have numerous speculative and narrative 
writings, and, finally, his series of fictions. He turned his pen 
to any subject, and cast his thoughts into any form which circum- 
stances made desirable, with an extraordinary facility. Now we 
find him recording the casualties of a remarkable storm, now- 
hard at work upon a •' Seasonable Caution : " one day engaged 
on a versified eulogy of Scotland, — while on a visit there, — 
published under the title of " Caledonia," and another, deep in a 
"History of the Union," which he had been an efiective agent 
in promoting. To-day it is a commercial essay ; to-morrow, a 
book of travels. He prepares an impressive story of Mrs. YeaVs 
ghost, which, attached to a heavy book on '• Death," gives it life 
at once. He is no sooner out of the pillory, than he indites a 
philosophical hymn to the infamous machine. Shut up in New- 
gate, he starts a journal on a new and better plan than any 
before known. He welcomes Marlborough home with stanzas to 
Yictory ; and, when the war is over, chants the glory of Pe;ice. 
Opposed to the existing school of speculation, he groups in ironi- 
cal verse the poets, sceptics, and metaphysicians, of his day. He 
translates Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting : and tilts, in pungent 
rhymes, against the divine right of kings. As might have been 
anticipated, such rapid and vaiied composition admitted of no 



DANIEL DE FOE. 295 

finish or revision. De Foe's cleverness and industry aic nior^ 
remarkable than liis taste and care. His object usually was to 
produce an immediate impression on the world of opinion, or to 
supply his own wants by his pen-craft. Hence the temporary 
interest and merely incidental value of many of his writings. 
No small part of them, however, are not only of practical usf, 
but of historical importance. De Foe has been declared by a 
good critic Locke's equal in reasoning. Of his " Essay on 
Projects" it has been said, that it is more rich in thought than 
any book since Bacon, and that it embodies the French Revolu- 
tion without its follies. His great mental quality was vigorous 
sense. He was deficient in the love of the beautiful, and seems 
to have had an inadequate perception of art. He was not poeti- 
cal by nature. His metrical essays owe their effect wholly to 
the epigrammatic hits and the sound argument they contain ; the 
melodious versification of his contemporaries never taught him 
rhythm ; not only are his verses destitute of refined sentiment, 
but they are singularly harsh and unmusical. He belongs to the 
same school of rhymers with Butler, Swift, and Crabbe ; not 
imagination and grace, but graphic touches and wit, redeem his 
lines. As a literary artist his merit lies almost exclusively in 
prose narrative. Here he exhibited all the individuality of his 
genius, and achieved his permanent renown. The secret of his 
effective style of narration lies in simple force of diction, homely 
and expressive words, and an elaborate and precise statement of 
details. Together, these traits form a whole that affects the 
mind with all the distinctness of reality. Dr. Johnson thought 
that the "Adventures of Captain Singleton," De Foe's second 
work of fiction, was a record of facts : Lord Chatham quoted his 
" Memoirs of a Cavalier" as a genuine piece of biography ; and 
Dr. Wood, the account of the Plague in London as the result of 
personal observation ; while the credence that the mass of readers 
bestowed upon the story of Mrs. Veal's apparition is evident from 
the large sale it at once secured for Drelincourfs unpopular 
essay. 

It is curious to trace the progress of the modern novel from 
Ionia to Italy, and thence to England ; its rudimental and imagin- 
ative style in the East, its pedantic and sentimental development 



296 THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE. 

in Arcadian romances, and its simple, direct, matter-of-fact, and 
human interest as exhibited by De Foe, destined to be rendered 
more and more complex and artistic with the increased refine- 
ments and divisions of society, as painted by Bulwer and Thack- 
eray. The element of probability, the artistic use of natural 
incidents in their legitimate order and specialties, so admirably 
illustrated by De Foe, is, however, as indispensable to the suc- 
cessful novelist to-day as when Robinson Crusoe appeared. We 
can easily perceive its recognition by the masters of romance. 
It is obvious in the minute local and personal descriptions of 
Scott, in Godwin's details of consciousness, and even in the gro- 
tesque pictures of still-life by Dickens. Verisimilitude is the great 
merit of De Foe as a novelist. The seeming authenticity of his 
stories is also greatly enhanced by the autobiographic form in 
which they are cast. He is a model narrator ; passages of his 
fictions read like the testimony elicited in a court of justice; and 
incidental and apparently trifling circumstances are so naturally 
interwoven, as to give a singular air of truth to the whole. Now 
the plots of the novelist are more intricate, his characters more 
finely shaded and elaborately wrought, and his style of composi- 
tion raised to a much higher standard. Yet the profound 
actuality and stern truth of De Foe give him a tenacious hold on 
the common sympathy ; he excites deeper faith, and inherits 
household fame. He had been a close student of human life and 
human nature, in their most inartificial and significant phases. 
Born of a sect that disdained, the trappings and acknowledged the 
spiritual meaning of existence, he was wedded to reality from his 
cradle. His conflict with fortune was hand to hand and uninter- 
mitted. He used to seek communion with soldiers, sailors, and 
other adventurous offspring of his own transition era. He was 
well acquainted w^ith Dampier, the navigator ; he saw much of 
foreign' countries, took counsel with kings, studied economics in 
the experience of trade, authorship, and office, witnessed the most 
remarkable political vicissitudes, explored the mysteries of crime 
while an inmate of the Old Bailey, knew intimately the care and 
the solace of domestic ties, the viper sting of filial ingratitude, 
and the inexpressible worth of woman : he was ever a worker, and 
no butterfly, — always observing, reflecting, noting facts, musing 



DANIEL DE FOE. 297 

on the past, scanning the future, and keenly watching the pres- 
ent. Thus disciplined and enriched, De Foe's mind was tempered 
in the furnace of affliction, .and hence it is that he writes of men 
and things with such truthful power and practical sense. As a 
child; he listened to incidents of the civil war from survivors; as 
a youth, he fraternized with the returned soldiers of Marlborough, 
and the maritime heroes who explored unknown seas. The coffee- 
house, the docks, the shop, the palace, the jail, the fireside, the 
strife of party, and the sanctions of a proscribed religion, inspired 
and moulded his Anglo-Saxon intelligence, his lion spirit, and 
humane sentiments, and enabled him to invent from experience 
with unequalled tact and an enduring charm. 

There is no contrast in English literature more entire than that 
between De Foe and the fashionable writers of his day. They 
indeed ushered in a more graceful epoch, and are identified with 
the amenities of literary aad social life ; but their humor, tact, 
skill, and beauty, and even the reform in manners and in taste 
they achieved, languish before the robust and practical truths 
advanced by De Foe. His writings, though comparatively neg- 
lected at present, from the actual triumph of the ideas they em- 
body, were distinguished then by a quality in which his more 
brilliant contemporaries were sadly deficient, — earnestness ; his 
object was moral, theirs artistic; he sought to modify opinion 
and build up institutions, they to refine style and gratify taste ; 
their sphere was sentiment, his action ; they strove with art to 
refine, he with argument to invigorate and make self-reliant the 
elements of national life and individual character ; he dealt con- 
scientiously with principles, they daintily with forms. 

When De Foe abandoned controversy for fiction, he had already 
achieved a long career of authorship, and had suffered enough to 
damp the energy of a less vigorous mind. But he entered this 
new and promising field with characteristic spirit and industry. 
Encouraged by the extraordinary success of " Robinson Crusoe," ' 
he published a series of tales similar in design, though much infe- 
rior in novelty and effect. It is to be regretted that the majority 
of these narratives are devoted to low life, and as De Foe's forte 
was adventure, and not characterization, the coarseness of some 
of his graphic histories is only redeemed by the matter-of-fact, 



298 THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE. 

self-possessed, and authentic style with which he "forges the 
handwriting of Nature." No writer ever drew more clearly the 
lines that divide vice from virtue. There is nothing insidious in 
his pictures of human frailty. "Roxana," "Colonel Jack,'' 
^' Moll Flanders," and other narratives of unprincipled vagabond- 
age, while they repel the discriminating reader of the present day, 
are yet historically worthy of attention, as being the genuine pre- 
cursors of the modern English novel. To ignore the early speci- 
mens of any class of writings, would be as unjust to literature 
historically regarded, as for the painter, in h?s admiration of 
Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, to forget Giotto and Perugino. 
"Captain Carleton" and "Memoirs of a Cavalier" are the germs 
of the historical romance of our day; even as the "Essay on 
Projects" may be regarded as the rough chart whence modern 
philanthropy and social science have derived much of their orig- 
inal impulse. Yet De Foe, with the usual perversity of -authors, 
seems to have valued his metrical treatise, called Jure Diviiio^ 
now quite neglected, above his influential pamphlets and his un- 
rivalled story. He wrote in the spirit of Franklin a.nd Cobbett ; 
his very lack of ideality, his self-reliance, and his practical mind, 
fitted him to become an exemplar in that literature which deals 
with common things in the universal heart. When Kean re- 
turned from his great experiment at Drury Lane, his anxious 
wife inquired w^hat Lord Essex thought of the performance. The 
answer of the triumphant actor was, "The pit rose to me." It 
was this popular recognition that De Foe sought and won ; and 
of this the permanent fame of Robinson Crusoe is the best illus- 
tration. 

No charge of plagiarism was ever more irrational than that 
which his enemies strove to affix to the author of this world-wide 
favorite. That the narrative was founded on reality appears from 
the well-known fact that Selkirk's Adventures were published in 
1712, seven years before Robinson Crusoe. This w^ork, and the 
paper by Steele on the subject, when compared witli the story of 
De Foe, will be found to bear a relation to it as inadequate to 
explain the conception, as one of the Italian tales, upon the dra- 
matized version of which Shakspeare founded his immortal plays, 
to those priceless dramas. Selkirk was cast on a desert island, 



DANIEL DE FOE. 299 

kindled a fire by rubbing bits of wood together, diverted himself 
by dancing with the goats he tamed, made a bed of their skins, 
built two huts, wrought a needle out of a nail and a knife-blade 
from a piece of iron hoop, fell from a precipice, and learned to 
run swiftly and to hunt animals. Such were the material hints 
thus furnished. In regard to the metaphysical, Steele remarks 
of Selkirk, that ' • it was a matter of great curiosity to hear him 
give an account of the different revolutions of his own mind in 
that long solitude." With our knowledge of De Foe's antece- 
de'nts, of his narrative powers, and his graphic, plain, and lucid 
diction, it is easy to imagine how such meagre suggestions would 
become expanded under his pen into an elaborate, detailed, and 
consistent story, alive with the truths of nature and consciousness. 
His habit of composition, his facility in the use of the vernacular 
tongue, his long political warfare, which deepened thought and 
quickened perception, his social isolation, and his very deficiency 
in scholarship and ideality, were but so many preparatives. The 
alternation of the seasons, the notches on the calendar-post, the 
visions of fever, the explorations, the domestic economy of bower 
and cave, inventions suggested by necessity, periods of religious 
self-communion, and keeping a journal of reflections, are the facts 
which, given out in Flemish detail, and in a style of familiar and 
homely directness, make up Robinson Crusoe's twenty-eight years 
of solitude. It has been remarked that the only essentially poet- 
ical scene is the discovery of the footprint. The original of Fri- 
day was, according to D' Israeli, a Mosquito Indian described by 
Dampier. What a striking proof of the universal charm of truth 
to nature is indicated by the popularity of such a work ! Minds 
as diverse and as highly endowed as those of Rousseau, Dr. John- 
son, Lamb, Scott, and our own Webster, acknowledged for it a 
life-long partiality. Cervantes and Bunyan are De Foe's only 
peers in the common heart. He has been justly called the Mu- 
rillo of the novelists. Boccaccio's warm and musical style is not 
more national than De Foe's stern outline and colloquial plain- 
ness. His poetry was that of the Bible, which Hazlitt well de- 
scribes as that of solitude. All of grandeur that he develops is 
that of simplicity and self-reliance : and. paradoxical as it seems, 
the great charm of his fiction is its truth. His convictions were 



300 THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE. 

grave, his observation minute, and his experience of life singu- 
larly painful, but conscience and intelligence were profoundly 
active ; and to these causes we can easily trace both the individu- 
ality and the attraction of his genius. 

Robinson Crusoe is a thoroughly English romance. It has 
none of the southern glow of the Italian iiovelle. Sentiment is 
in abeyance to sense in its hero. The interest is derived chiefly 
from external adventure, and not from impassioned scenes ; and 
the amusing and melodramatic elements, so conspicuous in French 
stories, are entirely ignored. It has the severity, the strong indi- 
viduality, of the Anglo-Saxon mind. The chapter descriptive of 
domestic life in the household of a pious citizen of the middle 
class, is a most characteristic introduction ; the passion for sea-life 
is a national trait : the relio-ious feelino; that strufrdes in the wan- 
derer's breast, at the outset, with his own perverse desires, is also, 
both in its form and expression, singularly true to the character 
of the English dissenters. The inventive talent which Robinson 
exhibits is a source of peculiar interest to a thrifty and commer- 
cial race; his self-dependent, methodical, and industrious spirit 
was but a type of his nation ; his recognition of conscience and 
providence, the absence of imagination, and the multiplicity of 
facts, are phases of the story in strict accordance with the Eng- 
lish mind. The verji problem of the book — that of a human 
being thrown entirely upon his own resources — is one remarka- 
bly adapted to the genius of an Englishman, and it is worked out 
with equal significance. Solitude has been made the basis of 
novels and memoirs in many notable instances ; but how diverse 
the treatment from that of De Foe ! The biography of Trenck, 
the '"Prisons" of Pellico, and the "Picciola" of De Saintine, 
borrow their moral interest from the isolation of their heroes ; but 
it is affection and fancy that lend a charm to such narratives. 
Poets, the most eloquent of modern times, have sung the praises 
of solitude ; Byron, Foscolo. and Chateaubriand, have set it forth 
as the sphere of imaginative pleasure : Zimmerman has argued 
its claims ; St. Pierre and Humboldt have indicated how much 
it enhances the enjoyment of nature. But in these and similar 
instances, the idiosyncrasy of the writers, and not human nature 
in general, is alive to the experiment. De Foe gives a practical 



DANIELDEFOE. 301 

solution to the idea. He describes the physical resources avail- 
able to a patient and active hermit. He brings man into direct 
contact with Nature, and shows how he, by his single arm, 
thought, and will, can subdue her to his use. He places a human 
soul alone with God and the universe, and records its solitary 
struggles, its remorse, its yearning for companionship, its thirst 
for truth, and its resignation to its Creator. Robinson is no 
poet, mystic, or man of science, but an Englishman of average 
mind and ordinary education ; and on his desert island he never 
loses his nationality. Fertile in expedients, prone to domesticity, 
fond of a long ramble, mindful of the Sabbath, provident, sus- 
tained by his Bible and his gun, a philosopher by nature, a 
utilitarian by instinct, accustomed to introspection, serious in his 
views, — against the vast blank of solitude, his figure clad in 
goat-skins stands in bold relief, — the moral ideal and exemplar 
of his nation and class. 

Writings that thus sufvive a miscellaneous group will be 
found to contain a vital element of the author's nature or 
experience. They triumph over the oblivious influence of 
change and time, because created "in the lusty stealth of 
nature; " and are more vigorous by virtue of this spontaneous 
origin. De Foe's life was a moral solitude. If he knew not 
the discipline of an uninhabited island, he was familiar with that 
deeper isolation which the tyranny of opinion creates. He was 
separated from his kind, not indeed by leagues of ocean, but by 
the equally inexorable sea of faction. Prejudice, in an unchar- 
itable age, divided him as effectually from society as a barrier of 
nature. Nor in his case did the sympathy of those for whom he 
thought and suffered relieve the grim features of solitude. He 
was too independent, and too much in advance of his time, not to 
be essentially apart from those Avho were ostensibly near and 
around him. He was driven into the intrenchments of conscious- 
ness. Like all bold and individual thinkers, he was often alone. 
From his earliest years his lot was cast and his choice made with 
a despised minority ; and not until his head was bleached did the 
party and the class with which he acted hold the balance of 
power. As Bunyan was the spiritual prophet of the people, De 
Foe was their practical expositor. He espoused their cause 
26 



302 THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE. 

before philanthropic organizations and public opinion had won 
respect for it. Obcrlin had then regenerated no poor village ; 
Penny Magazines were undreamed of; Burns had not set to 
undying music the cottager's life ; the vulgar were divided 
by an immense gulf from the educated. Heroic then was it 
to brood over the dark problems of civilization. Literature 
was the privilege and the ornament of the few. Pope trans- 
lated the Iliad, and celebrated the graces of Belinda ; Swift 
did a courtier's taskwork ; Addison, with scholarly zest, de- 
scribed his Italian journey ; but De Foe pleaded for the rights 
of Dissenters, expounded the principles of trade, and wrote 
manuals for the religious, political, and domestic guidance of 
the masses. He was an intellectual pioneer, the herald of 
utility in letters, the advocate of practical truth. Instead of 
social distinction and the pleasures of taste, he aimed at 
reform. Ignored by the elegant, despised by the gay, perse- 
cuted by those in authority, he sternly rebuked corruption, 
boldly announced principles, and incessantly advocated humanity. 
The brutal injustice of party spirit in England is signally 
illustrated in the life of her most characteristic author. The 
ferocity of her baronial era seems transferred to her literary and 
political annals. The same inhuman and relentless cruelty, 
insensate prejudice, and dogmatic will, reign in the world of 
opinion, as in the scenes of the ring, the duel, the criminal law, 
the domestic tyranny, and other barbarisms that deform her 
social history. Genius enjoys no immunity from this instinctive 
exercise of arbitrary power. The robbers of Italy spared 
Ariosto when they discovered that their captive was the author 
of the Orlando ; the French mob that besieged the Tuileries and 
decapitated the king, protected from mutilation the beautiful 
statues that adorned the palace-garden ; but no sentiment checks 
the rabid pen or melts the bigoted judge that sought, in De Foe's 
age and country, to awe or vanquish obnoxious writers. The 
terms in which they are assailed are those of execration or con- 
tempt ; all sense of justice, honor, truth, and humanity, is repu- 
diated ; and the victim is coolly neglected, or heartlessly crushed, 
without an emotion of pity or a scruple of remorse. Even the 
comparatively liberal criticism of a later day is tinctured with 



DANIEL DE FOE. 303 

this savage arrogance. The impertinent sarcasm with which the 
fashionable reviews treated Keats and "Wordsworth, the faint 
praise with which Reynolds kept the merits of Gainsborough 
in the shade, the fanatical calumnies heaped upon Shelley, 
the coarse ridicule that drove Byron into satire, and the im- 
prisonment of Hunt and Montgomery, attest an identical 
tyranny of opinion. Happily De Foe vindicated and endeared 
his own memory by the legacy he bequeathed in his unrivalled 
fiction. But it serves not only to make him remembered 
with gratitude ; it is a nucleus for the indignation and sympathy 
of subsequent generations. Think of that inventive mind, that 
heart overflowing with manly emotion, that reason ever exer- 
cised for the honor of his country and the advancement of his 
race, tortured, darkened, and baffled, throughout a long and 
heroic life, by the falsehood, the scorn, and the cruelty, of 
mankind. Swift denied him learning ; Oldmixon declared that 
his vocation was espionage ; Prior pronounced his pen venal ; 
Pope put him into the Dunciad ; the courts of London doomed 
him to the pillory and a felon's cell ; one writer charged him 
with prefixing a De to his name to escape the reputation of an 
English origin ; another insinuated that he appropriated Sel- 
kirk's papers, and stole the materials of his famous story ; one 
day he is advertised as an absconding debtor, the next published 
as the author of a vile tract that he never saw : now the stu- 
pidity of his own party misinterprets the satirical intent of a 
pamphlet, which is essentially promoting their cause ; and now 
the Bill of Rights is openly violated by the ministers of justice, 
in order to wreak upon him their vindictive fiat. And all this 
time De Foe was the most thorough Englishman and writer of 
his day, a model of integrity, and as consistent, sincere, and 
brave, as he was gifted. 



THE ORNITHOLOGIST 

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 



A PECULIAR charm invests the lives of naturalists. The path 
of the military conqueror is blood-stained, that of the statesman 
involved and tortuous, while the pale legions of avarice usually 
beset the goal of maritime discoverv, and associate the names of 
its heroes with scenes of anarchy and oppression ; but the lover 
of Nature, who goes forth to examine her wonders, or copy 
her graces, is impelled by a noble enthusiasm, and works in 
the spirit both of love and wisdom. We cannot read of the 
brave wanderings of Michaux in search of his sylvan idols ; of 
Hugh Miller, while at his mason's work, reverently deducing 
the grandest theories of creation from a fossil of the "old red 
sandstone ; " or of Wilson, made an ornithologist, in feeling at 
least, by the sight of a red-headed woodpecker which greeted his 
eyes on landing in America, without a warm sympathy with the 
simple, pure, and earnest natures of men thus drawn into a life- 
devotion to Nature, by admiration of her laws, and sensibility to 
her beauty. If we thoughtfully follow the steps and analyze the 
characters of such men, we usually find them a most attractive 
combination of the child, the hero, and the poet, with, too often, 
a shade of the martyr. An inkling of the naturalist is, indeed, 
characteristic of poets. Cowper loved hares ; Gray, gold-fish ; 
Alfieri, horses ; and Sir Walter Scott, dogs ; but, when pursued 
as a special vocation, ornithology seems the most interesting 
department of natural history. 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 305 

Audubon's career began and was prosecuted with an artistic 
rather than a scientific enthusiasm. His father appears to have 
been an intelligent lover of nature, and took pleasure in walking 
abroad with his son to observe her wonders. These colloquies 
and promenades made a lasting impression upon his plastic mind. 
It is evident that the habits and appearance of animated nature 
at once enlisted his sympathies ; the accidental view of a book of 
illustrations in natural history excited the desire of imitation, 
and he began in a rude way to delineate the forms, colors, atti- 
tudes, and, as far as possible, the expression of the creatures he 
so admired. Chagrined, but never wholly discouraged, at the 
ill-success of his early attempts, he annually executed and 
destroyed hundreds of pictures and drawings, until long practice 
had given him the extraordinary skill which renders his mature 
efibrts unequalled, both for authenticity and beauty. He art- 
lessly confesses that, finding it impossible to possess or to live 
with the birds and animals which inspired his youthful love, he 
became ardently desirous to make perfect representations of them ; 
and in this feeling we trace the germ of his subsequent greatness. 
Thus the origin of Audubon's world-renowned achievements was 
disinterested. His love of nature was not philosophic, like that 
of Wordsworth, nor scientific, like that of Humboldt, nor adven- 
turous, like that of Boone ; but special and artistic, — circum- 
stances, rather than native idiosyncrasy, made him a naturalist ; 
and his knowledge was by no means so extensive in this regard 
as that of others less known to fame. But few men have indulged 
so genuine a love of nature for her own sake, aud found such 
enjoyment in delineating one of the most poetical and least 
explored departments of her boundless kingdom. To the last 
his special ability, as an artistic naturalist, was unapproached ; 
and, while one of his sons drew the outline, and another painted 
the landscape, or the foreground, it was his faithful hand that, 
with a steel-pen, made the hairy coat of the deer, or, with a fine 
pencil, added the exquisite plumage to the sea-fowl's breast. For 
years he fondly explored woods, prairies, and the Atlantic shores, 
and drew and colored birds and. beasts, without an idea of any 
benefit other than the immediate gratification thus derived. It 
was not until his interview with Lucien Bonaparte in 1824, and 
26* 



306 THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 

the latter's unexpected oifer to purchase his drawings, that he 
conceived the project of giving the results of his explorations 
to the world. Although, in pursuance of this intention, he 
embarked soon after for Europe with characteristic promptitude 
and eager hopes, the loneliness of his position, and the want of 
means and influence, depressed him on landing ; but the instant 
and cordial recognition he met with from the active literary and 
scientific men abroad soon confirmed his original resolution. 
Roscoe, Wilson, Jefii-ej, Brewster, Herschel, and Humboldt, 
successfully advocated his claims, and cheered him with their 
personal friendship ; and, under such favorable auspices, his first 
contributions to ornithology appeared in Edinburgh. Indeed, 
notwithstanding the privations and difficulties he encountered, an 
unusual amount of sympathy and encouragement fell to the lot 
of Audubon. Compared with other votaries of a special object 
purely tasteful and scientific in its nature, he had little reason to 
complain. Of the one hundred and seventy subscribers of a 
thousand dollars each to his great work, eighty were his own 
countrymen ; and his declining years were passed in independence 
and comfort in the midst of an afiectionate and thriving family, 
the participants of his taste. His elasticity of temperament, also, 
was not less a distinction than a blessing ; it supported his weari- 
some and lonely wanderings both in search of birds in the forest 
and of encouragement among men ; and, when the labor of years 
was destroyed, after a brief interval of mental anguish, it nerved 
him to renewed labor, so that in three years his portfolio was 
again filled. 

Born the same year that independence was declared by the 
Americans, his father an admiral in the French navy, and his 
birthplace Louisiana, he was early sent to France for his educa- 
tion, where he received lessons in drawing from David, but pined 
the while for the free life and the wild forests of his own country. 
On his return, his father gave him a beautiful plantation on the 
banks of the Schuylkill, and he married. But neither agricul- 
tural interests nor domestic ties could quell the love of nature in 
his breast ; and for months he wandered in search of objects for 
his pencil, unsustained by any human being except his wife, who 
seems to have realized from the first the tendency and promise of 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 307 

his mind. At length, in order to enjoy the opportunities he 
craved, and at the same time have the society of his family, 
Audubon determined to emigrate, and selected the village of Hen- 
derson, in Kentucky, for his new home. In the autumn of 1810 
he floated down the Ohio, in an open skifi", with his wife, child, 
and two negroes, his mattress, viands, and rifle, happy in the 
prospect of nearer and more undisturbed intercourse with nature, 
and intensely enjoying the pomp of the autumnal woods, the haze 
of the Indian summer, and the wildness and solitude around him. 
The locality chosen proved adequate to his aims ; day after day, 
with his dog, gun, and box of pencils and colors, he made excur- 
sions, now shooting down a fresh subject, now delineating its hues 
and form ; one moment peering into a nest, and at another scaling 
a cliff, for hours watching the conduct of a pair of birds, as, uncon- 
scious that their doings were to be set in a note-book, they con- 
structed a graceful nest, fed then' young, or trilled a spontaneous 
melody. Over streams, through tangled brushwood, amid swamps, 
and in stony ravines, beneath tempest, sunshine, and starlight, 
the indefatigable wanderer thus lived ; the wild beast, the treach- 
erous Indian, the gentle moon, and the lowly wild-flower, sole 
witnesses of his curious labors. 

Audubon returned from Europe to prosecute his ornithological 
researches with fresh zest and assiduity ; and his first expedition 
was to the coast of Florida, where he made rich additions to his 
portfolio among the sea-fowl of that region. He afterwards suc- 
cessfully explored Maine, the British Provinces, and the ice-clad 
and desolate shores of Labrador. The most remarkable and hap- 
piest era of his life was, doubtless, that employed in collecting 
the materials, executing the pictures, and obtaining the sub- 
scribers to his "Birds of America." His wanderings previously 
have the interest of adventure, and the charm derived from the 
indulgence of a passionate love of nature ; and his subsequent 
excursions, and artistic labors, in behalf of the work on the 
" Quadrupeds of America," begun in 1842, afford pleasing evi- 
dence of his enduring taste and noble perseverance. But the 
period included by his ornithological enterprise is more charac- 
teristic and satisfactory. He had a great end in view, and the 
wildest forest and most unfrequented shores, the highest and 



308 THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 

most cultivated sphere of society, and the most patient and deli- 
cate limning, were the means of its realization ; and it is when 
contemplating him in this threefold relation that we learn to ap- 
preciate the mingled hardihood, enthusiasm, firmness, and dignity, 
so remarkably united in his character. In the woods, a genial 
companion, a 'single-hearted, kind, and generous friend, as well 
as a childlike enthusiast and manly sportsman ; he stood before 
the council of an institution with his first delineation, — the bald- 
headed eagle. — or opened his portfolio to the inspection of an Eng- 
lish nobleman in his lordly castle, with quiet self-possession, an 
independent air, and without exhibiting the least solicitude either 
for patronage or approbation. Arriving at a frontier village, 
after a tramp of months in the wilderness, his long beard, tattered 
leather dress, and keen eye, made him an object of idle wonder 
or impertinent gossip ; but none imagined that this grotesque 
hunter-artist enjoyed the honors of all the learned societies of 
Europe. His exultation at the discovery of a new species, and 
his satisfaction at the correct finish and elegant verisimilitude 
of a specimen, amply recompensed him for days of exposure or 
ill success. On his journey from the South, he kept pace with 
the migration of the birds ; and he proclaimed the Washington 
sea-eagle to his country and the scientific world with the pride 
and delight of a conqueror. 

His passion for rambling caused Audubon to fail in several 
business enterprises he undertook ; and at one period he applied 
to Sully for instruction in portrait-painting, but soon abandoned 
the idea. So faulty did Dawson, the engraver originally em- 
ployed by the Prince of Musignano to illustrate his ornithology, 
consider the early specimens of Audubon's skill as a draftsman, 
that be refused to execute them, and appeared to consider the pig- 
ments invented by the woodland artist as the most remarkable 
feature they presented. Although thus discouraged on every 
hand, we can readily believe his declaration, that he left America 
with profound regret, although his career abroad affords yet 
another striking evidence of that memorable and holy saying, 
"that a prophet is not without honor save in his own country." 
It is natural that a man who succeeded by virtue of toil and for- 
titude should repudiate the commonly received faith in mere 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 309 

genius : and we are not surprised that his settled view of the 
philosophy of life was patient self-reliance, and meditation on 
facts derived from personal observation, with unremitted habits 
of labor. To these resources he owed his own renown and 
achievements ; and his high-arched brow, dark-gray eye, and 
vivacious temperament, marked him as fitted by nature to excel in 
action as well as thought — a destiny which his pursuits singu- 
larly realized. There was something bird-like in the very physi- 
ognomy of Audubon, in the shape and keenness of his eye, the 
aquiline form of the nose, and a certain piercing and vivid expres- 
sion when animated. He was thoroughly himself only amid the 
freedom and exuberance of nature ; the breath of the woods exhil- 
arated and inspired him ; he was more at ease under a canopy of 
boughs than beneath gilded cornices, and felt a necessity to be 
within sight either of the horizon or the sea. Indeed, so prevail- 
ing was this appetite for nature, if we may so call it, that from 
the moment the idea of his last-projected expedition was aban- 
doned, — in accordance with the urgent remonstrances of his fam- 
ily, mindful of his advanced age, — he began to droop, and the 
force and concentration of his intellect visibly declined. Both 
his success and his misfortunes, therefore, proved the wisdom of 
Richter's advice, to steadfastly and confidently follow the perma- 
nent instincts of character, however they may seem opposed to 
immediate interest. 

The style of Audubon reflects his character with unusual em- 
phasis and truth. He was one of that class of men who united 
intellectual and physical activity in their natures so equally, that 
while their very temperament forbids them to be exclusively stu- 
dents, their intelligence demands a constant accession of new 
ideas. Professor Wilson and Baron Humboldt belong to the 
same species. No one can glance over Audubon's Biography of 
Birds without being struck with the unusual animation and real- 
ity of the style. He writes with an ease and enthusiasm that 
makes portions of his work quite as entertaining and far more 
suggestive than a felicitous novel. Instead of a formal nomen- 
clature or pedantic description, he digresses continually from the 
technical details which are requisite to the scientific value of his 
treatise, to charming episodes of personal adventure, sketches of 



310 THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 

local scenery and habits, and curious anecdotes illustrative of nat- 
ural history or human character. The titles of these incidental 
chapters adequately suggest their aim and interest, such as "Hos- 
pitality in the Woods," "Force of the Waters," "The Squatters 
of Labrador," "Wreckers of Florida," "A Maple Sugar Camp," 
" A Ball in Newfoundland," " Breaking Up of the Sea," " Pit- 
ting of Wolves," " Long Calm at Sea," "A Kentucky Barbecue," 
etc. We are thus genially admitted to the knowledge of much 
that is characteristic and interesting, by spirited and graceful 
narratives. His artist's eye and his sportsman's zest give liveli- 
ness and a picturesque grace to the best of these interludes ; they 
relieve the monotony of mere description, and also impart an indi- 
viduality to the entire work, by associating the positive informa- 
tion it conveys with the fortunes and feelings of the author. His 
habit of naming newly-discovered birds after his friends is another 
pleasing feature. Thus genially is our view of nature enlarged, 
the attractiveness of romance given to a department of natural 
history, and one part of the world made perfectly acquainted with 
the feathered tribes of another. We need not enlarge upon the 
amenities resulting from pursuits of this kind, and their encour- 
agement by individuals of taste and wealth, — of the innocent and 
available gratification thus extensively yielded, or of the more 
liberal and pleasing views resulting therefrom. In a literary 
point of view, the style of Audubon, notwithstanding an almost 
unavoidable vein of egotism, in its clearness, colloquial facility, 
and infectious enthusiasm, proves how much more effectively inti- 
macy with nature develops even the power of expression than 
conformity to rules ; and vindicates completeness of life, anim'al 
and mental, as essential to true manhood even in literature. 

This, in our view, is one of the most important lessons derived 
from such a career as that of Audubon philosophically considered. 
There is a cant of spiritualism, at the present day, which repudi- 
ates the vital relation of genius to material laws. In the view of 
this shallow philosophy, to trace intellectual results in any degree 
^to physical causes is derogating from the essential beauty of 
mind. The class of persons who affect this extreme devotion to 
ethereal systems, aim to sever body and soul while mutually alive, 
contemn physiology in their analysis of character, and recognize 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 311 

only the abstract in mental phenomena. This mode of reasoning 
is founded not less in irreverence than error. The most truly 
beautiful and significant phases of intellect, fancy, moral senti- 
ment, and all that is deemed spiritual in man, is born of its com- 
bination with the human. Indeed, the grand characteristic of 
life, considered in a metaphysical light, is that it is a condition 
which brings together and gives scope for the action and reaction 
of material influences on spiritual genius. The end is develop- 
ment, growth, and modification. As the rarest fruit owes its 
flavor and hues to qualities imbibed from earth and air, from rain 
and sunshine, so what is called the soul is the product of the 
thinking and sensitive principle in our nature, warmed, enriched, 
and quickened by the agency of an animal organism, — the chan- 
nel of nature. — by sensation, physical development, appetites and 
sensations, as well as ideas. 

' An author difiers from other men only by the gift and habit of 
expression. This faculty (to which, for the ordinary purpose of 
convenience and pleasure, speech is only requisite) through genial 
cultivation redoubles its force,* meaning, and beauty, and is capa- 
ble of afibrding a kind of permanent utterance to what is most 
dear and important to man. It is obvious, therefore, that the 
more thoroughly an author's nature embraces the traits peculiar 
to manhood, the more efficiently and satisfactorily will his vocation 
be fulfilled. Hence the universal recognition of Shakspeare's 
supremacy in authorship : it is because his range of expression 
included more of what is within and around life — more, in a 
word, of humanity — than any other single expositor. In general, 
authorship is partial, temporary, and its force lies in a special 
form. Writers devoted to abstract truth, like Kant and Jonathan 
Edwards, are not to be included in the proposition, as their appeal 
is not to the sympathies, but to the pure intelligence of the race. 
But the authors who really afiect the mass, and represent vividly 
the spirit of their age, are not less eminent for genuine human 
qualities, for prevailing traits of temperament, appetite, and 
sensibility, than for superior reflective and imaginative gifts. It 
is, indeed, essential that they should possess the former in a high 
degree in order efiectively to exhibit the latter. This is con- 
stantly illustrated in literature and art. With a fancy which 



312 THE ORNITHOLOGIST. 

scarcely approached the idealism of Shelley, Burns thrilled the 
heart of his kind by virtue of an organization that humanized his 
genius. Landor is equipped with the lore of antiquity, and all 
the graces of classical diction, to advocate his liberal opinions ; yet, 
while his elegant volumes adorn the libraries of scholars and men 
of taste, Dickens, by virtue of what may be called a more genial 
instinct, pleads for the oppressed in a million hearts. Jenny 
Lind sings many cavatinas with more precision and artistic power 
than Grisi ; but her voice, uncharged with the sensuous life, 
whose vibration is inevitably sympathetic, does not so seize upon 
the nerves or quicken the blood. The element of sensation, as 
related to sound, form, and ideas, is essential to popular litera- 
ture. It is the peculiar characteristic of this department of art 
that it depends upon sympathy, which can only be awakened in 
large circles by addressing the whole nature, by winning the 
senses as well as the mind, stirring the h^art not less than elicit- 
ing the judgment, and, in a word, making itself felt in that uni- 
versal human consciousness which, to distinguish it alike from 
mere intellect or mere feeling, we call the soul. 

The author who expects reception there must write not only 
with his intelligence, his imagination, and his will, but with his 
temperament and his sensitive organism ; he must, in a degree, 
fuse perception and sensation, nervous energy and moral feeling, 
physical emotion and aerial fancy ; and then, at some point, he 
will be sure to touch the sympathy of others ; not the scholar 
only, but the peasant. Accordingly, we always find in the habits 
and idiosyncrasies of popular authors a clue to their success. 
There is an analogy between their constitution and their writing. 
The tone of the latter is born of the man, and forms his personal 
distinction as an author. Reasoning, rhetoric, and descriptive 
limning, considered as processes, do not differ according to the 
writer, — they only vary in a certain spirit, manner, or, more 
properly, tone : and w^hen we analyze this, we shall find it given 
out by the individual character, by the particular union of moral 
and physical qualities that make up the identity of the author, 
and not originating in a pure abstract and spirittlal emanation. 
Far from diminishing, this but enhances the interest of author- 
ship ; it renders it a great social fact, and a legitimate branch of 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 313 

human economy. It teaches us to regard authors as we regard 
men, by the light of character ; and from their human to deduce 
their literary peculiarities instead of the reverse, which is the 
method of superficial criticism. 

The popular basis of Audubon's renown, as well as the indi- 
viduality of his taste as a naturalist, rests upon artistic merit. 
We have alluded to the instinctive desire he so early manifested 
not only to observe, but to possess the beautiful denizens of the 
forest and the meadow ; and he candidly acknowledges that he was 
induced to take their portraits to console himself for not possess- 
ing the originals. Rude as were his first attempts to delineate 
birds, few portrait-painters work in a more disinterested spirit. 
The motive was neither gain, nor hope of distinction, nor even 
scientific enthusiasm ; for when Wilson called at his place of busi- 
ness, these primitive sketches were produced as the results of 
leisure, and the work of an unskilled amateur. It is evident, 
therefore, that a genuine love of the occupation, and a desire to 
have authentic memorials of these objects of his enthusiastic admi- 
ration, was the original cause of his labors with crayon and pig- 
ments ; circumstances, an ardent temperament, and an earnest 
will, gradually developed this spontaneous tendency into a mas- 
terly artistic faculty ; he sketched, painted, and destroyed, copied, 
retouched, and improved, until he succeeded in representing per- 
fectly the forms, colors, attitudes, and expression, of the feath- 
ered tribe. The life-size of these delineations, their wonderful 
accuracy, the beauty of their hues, and the animation of their 
aspect, instantly secured for the backwoodsman-artist universal 
praise ; but a minute inspection revealed yet higher claims ; each 
plate, in fact, is an epitome of the natural history of the species 
depicted; male and female, young and adult, are grouped 
together, their plumage at difierent seasons, the vegetation they 
prefer, the soil, the food, sometimes the habits, and often the prey, 
of each bird, are thus indicated ; and we take in at a glance not 
only the figure, but the peculiarities of the genus. This com- 
pleteness of illustration, the result of vast study, united as it is 
with grace and brilliancy of execution, led the great naturalist of 
France to declare that America had achieved a work unequalled 
in Europe. No lover of nature, whether poet or savan, can 
2T 



314 T II E R N I T II L G I S T . 

contemplate these exquisite and vivid pictures in a foreign coun- 
try, without delight and gratitude ; for, without any exertion on 
his part, they introduce him to an intimate acquaintance with the 
varied and numerous birds which haunt the woods, sky, and 
waters, between Labrador and Florida, in hue, outline, and action, 
as vivid and true as those of nature ; and their intrinsic value as 
memorials is enhanced by the consideration that a rapid disap- 
pearance of whole species of birds has been observed to attend the 
progress of civilization on this continent. 



THE SENTIMENTALIST 

LAURENCE STERNE. 



There is a peculiar incongruity in the associations which 
the name of Laurence Sterne excites. He represents several 
very distinct and inharmonious phases of character. There are 
the Prebendary of York, and the Vicar of Sutton in the Forest 
and of Stillington — most respectable designations; there is 
mirthful, plaintive, quaint Yorick, with his fancy and humor, 
his amorous trifling, his rollicking table-talk, and his vagrant 
sentimentalism ; then the affectionate father of Lydia Sterne, a 
character worthy of esteem and love ; again he appears as a fash- 
ionable preacher, a standard author, and a " loose fellow about 
town," whom it is somewhat disreputable to praise, and even 
about whose literary merits modesty is often instinctively silent ; 
publishing alternately a volume of Tristram Shandy and a 
volume of sermons — the man of the world and the priest making 
a simultaneous appeal to the reading public. Yet, withal, those 
of us who, in some old sunny, rural home, early became familiar 
with that long array of little volumes, in obsolete type, and found 
them here and there exhaling the mellow breath of a gentle, 
pensive mood, embodied in most apt and graceful phraseology, 
must confess a kindliness for the author, however we may con- 
demn his freedom of speech, and resent his abuse of the canons 
of taste and the integrity of feeling. 

Inclined as English writers are to literary biography, and 
constant as has been the revival of memorials and critiques of 



316 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

their standard authors, since the establishment of the leading 
reviews, Sterne has proved an exception. That he was born at 
Clonmel, in Ireland, November 24, 1713, and died in London, 
March 18, 1768 ; that he preached, dined out, visited the conti- 
nent, published books, left debts, one daughter, and the fame of 
rare gifts and doubtful conduct, is the sum of what we know of 
the man, except from his writings. Time has added little to the 
sparse details recorded in his own sketch ; and the scattered and 
meagre notices of his career have not been gathered and arranged 
with the reverential and loving care bestowed on whatever throws 
light upon such intellectual benefactors as Milton and Goldsmith. 
The feeling which prompts such tributary labor has been chilled, 
in this instance, by a consciousness that Sterne so violated the 
proprieties of life and the harmonies of character, as to afford ^a 
subject too perverse for hearty eulogium, and too imperfect for 
entire sympathy. The parish register of Sutton contains data, in 
his handwriting, from which we learn such unimportant items, as 
that at one time he planted an orchard, and at another the par- 
sonage was destroyed by fire. In a work entitled the Memoires 
d^un Voyageur qui se repose^ by M. Dutens (a refugee Abbe, 
one of Sydney Smith's visitors during his first sojourn in Lon- 
don), that appeared in London in 1806, occurs the following 
anecdote, which affords a vivid idea of his social peculiarities : 

" Nous etions au temps de I'anniversaire du Roi d'Angleterre. 
Milord Tavistock in vita la peu d'Anglois qui etoient a Paris a 
diner avec lui, pour le celebrer. Je fus de la partie, ou je ne 
trouvai de ma connoissance que ceux avec que j'etois venu a Pa- 
ris. Je fus assis entre Milord Berkeley et le fameux Sterne, 
auteur de Tristram Shandy, regarde comme la Eabelais de I'An- 
gleterre. On fut fort gai pendant le diner et Ton but a T Anglaise 
et selon le jour. La conversation vint a tomber sur Turin, ou 
plusieurs de la compagnie alloient; sur quoi M. Sterne m'ad- 
dressant la parole, demande si j'y connoissois Monsieur Dutens: 
je lui dis qu'oui et meme fort intimement. Tout la compagnie 
Be prit a rire ; et Sterne, qui ne me croyoit si pres de lui, s'im- 
agina ce Monsieur D. devoit etre un homme assez bizarre, puisque 
son nom seul faisoit rire ceux qui Fentendoient. ' N'est ce pas 



LAURENCE STERNE. ^ 317 

Tin homme singulier?' ajouta il tout de suite; 'Qui,' repris-je, 
'un original.' " 

Upon this hint, Sterne drew an imaginary, and by no means 
flattering, portrait of his neighbor, and related many amusing 
stories about him, unconscious, the while, that these inventions 
were heard by their good-natured subject. He did not discover 
the identity of his auditor with M. Dutens until the company 
separated, when he made ample apologies, which were graciously 
accepted. All wits have a mode of their own. Addison, we are 
told by Swift, would flatter the opinions of a man of extreme 
views on any subject, until he betrayed him into absurdity ; Lamb 
had a way of startling literal people by humorous sallies : Hook 
was a genius in practical jokes ; and Sterne, it appears, used to 
draw fancy portraits of real characters, to divert his boon com- 
panions. Had his accidental victim, in the instance related, been 
other than an urbane Frenchman, who could make allowance for 
a spirituelle invention, even though it somewhat compromised his 
own dignity, the "Rabelais d'Angleterre" might have been 
forced to protect himself from a duel under the very cloth whose 
immunities he so little deserved. A similar instance is recorded 
by Dr. Hill, who says that at a dinner-party the professional talk 
of a pedantic physician wearied the company and annoyed the 
host, when "good-humored Yorick fell into the cant and jargon 
of physic, as if he had been one of Radclifie"s travellers," and 
told such a ridiculous story of curing himself of an adhesion of 
the lungs by leaping fences, as restored the guests to mirthful- 
ness. 

The alleged insensibility of Sterne, the man, may be ascribed, 
in part, to his extreme frankness. He calls discretion '--an un- 
derstrapping virtue," and seems to have been singularly deficient 
in caution and reserve. He gave expression to the alternations 
of his mood and feelings with a reckless disregard to the effect of 
such inconsistency. At the University, we are told, he "amused 
himself by puzzling the tutors," and "left Cambridge with the 
character of an odd man, who had no harm in him, and had parts 
if he would use them." Thence he went to "the lap of the 
Church in a small village in Yorkshire," and, "as he advanced 
in literary fame, left his livings to the care of his curates," and 
27* 



318 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

preferred '' luxurious living with the great." The following 
charitable epitaph well describes such a maa : 

" Wit, humor, genius, hadst thou, all agree ; 
One grain of wisdom had been worth the three." 

His patient courtship shows that he was truly in love with 
his wife. Their marriage, in the face of inauspicious circum- 
stances, proves that they were both in earnest ; and his frank 
acknowledgment, a year after, that he was tired of his conjugal 
partner, argues no uncommon experience, but a rare and unjus- 
tifiable candor. His letters to Mrs. Draper, however wrong in 
the social code, and unprincipled in a married divine, were un- 
doubtedly sincere. His first efficient stroke as a lay writer 
consisted of a satire to oust the monopolist of a situation which 
one of his friends desired, and so successful was it that the 
incumbent offered to resign if the publication was suppressed. 
His parental affection has never been questioned; no one can 
doubt that his heart was devoted to, and engrossed with, his 
daughter Lydia. Inconstancy is one thing, insincerity quite 
another. The critics of Sterne invariably confound the two; 
and, because he was so unreliable in his attachments, and not 
proof against a succession of objects, they endeavor to discredit 
his pathos as artificial. As well might we seek to invalidate 
Bacon's philosophy because it failed to elevate him above syco- 
phancy, or Scott's romantic genius in view of his material 
ambition, or Byron's love of nature on account of his dissi- 
pation. 

Science, of late years, has thrown new light on the apparent 
contradictions of human nature, by investigating the laws of 
temperament, and the relation of the nervous system to intel- 
lectual development. A whole category of phenomena has been 
recognized by acute observation directed to susceptible organiza- 
tions ; and whoever is thus prepared will find no difficulty in 
explaining the incongruities so obvious between Sterne the man 
and Sterne the ' author. His will and intelligence were contin- 
ually modified by physical causes. He lacked hardihood, and was 
peculiarly alive to magnetic agencies. Hence his vagaries, his 
tender moods reacting to selfish calculation, and the theory of 



LAURENCE STERNE. 319 

life -which he was so fond of elaborating from sensation and fancy. 
"■SAyeet pliability of man's spirit," he exclaims, ''that can at 
ondfe surrender itself to illusions which cheat expectation and 
sorrow of their weary moments ! " "I can safely say, that, for 
myself, I was never, able to conquer one single bad sensation in 
my heart so decisively, as by beating up, as fast as I could, for 
some kindly and gentle sensation to fight it upon its own ground." 
•' A man who has not a sort of affection for the whole sex is 
incapable of ever loving a single one as he ought." "I know 
not how it is, but / am never so perfectly conscious of a soul 
within me, as when I am entangled in them." Again, in the 
sermon on the Pharisee, he says : "In benevolent natures the 
impulse to pity is so sudden, that, like instruments of music 
which obey the touch, the objects which are fitted to excite such 
impressions work so instantaneously that you would think the 
will was scarce concerned^ % Now, if we admit such confes- 
sions to be what Sterne claims for them, — " loose touches of an 
honest heart," — they explain, by the want of balance, the 
incompleteness of the man, his overplus of sensibility and defi- 
ciency of will and moral harmony, and show that it is quite 
possible for genuine feelnig to coexist with " infirmity of pur- 
pose," and emotional sympathy with an absence of disinterested- 
ness. Hence, Thackeray's censure is indiscriminate, when he 
sums up the character of this author with the statement that he 
"had artistical sensibility," and "exercised the lucrative gift of 
weeping," and that he is represented entirely by " tears and fine 
feelings, and a white pocket handkerchief, a procession of mutes, 
and a hearse with a dead donkey inside." This is satire, not 
criticism. Somewhat more real must Sterne's writings have con- 
tained to have survived the fluctuations of taste, and proved more 
or less models for subsequent and popular authors. Affectation 
and indecency are so alien to Anglo-Saxon instincts in literature, 
that only a large admixture of wit or grace could have preserved 
writings thus meretricious. 

This temperament, so undesirable for moral efficiency, was 
favorable to authorship. Its almost reckless impulse gave a 
certain sociability to pen-craft. It led, indeed, to the expression 
of much that offends refined taste and elevated sentiment, but, at 



320 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

the same time, what he wrote was all the more human for being 
unreserved. As a good table companion, while he entertains, 
often in the same proportion forfeits respect, so a writer o%thi3 
species attracts, by virtue of an abandon which is full of peril 
as a trait of character, and yet induces a thousand felicities of 
invention and style. Allied to genius, it is a great element of 
success. Without it Byron would never have imparted the sens- 
ation of his own experience, which is the source of his intensity. 
So largely does it enter into the old English drama, that we are 
continually startled and thrilled by a boldness of language which, 
unchastened as it is, takes hold at once upon the emotional in our 
nature. One secret, therefore, of the charm whereby Sterne 
maintains so definite a rank in English literature, is the freedom 
of his tone, involving, with much that is gross, a frank challenge 
to our sympathies as human beings, — a companionable appeal, 
which the reader, with even an ijikling of geniality, cannot resist. 
He professes to write for the benefit of those who, " when cooped 
up betwixt a natural and positive law, know not. for their souls, 
which way in the world to turn themselves." He thus establishes 
a relation with his reader, personal, direct, and genuine — the 
first condition of success in authorship. This relation is never 
long forgotten. He addresses both sexes, in a colloquial, friendly, 
trustful manner, and seems to identify himself with each by the 
magnetism of a determined recognition, which it is as unpleasant 
to evade as it is to repel the courteous and benign advances of 
an urbane stranger whom we accidentally encounter. He is so 
confidential, communicative, at his ease* and agreeable, that we 
instinctively yield. 

Contemporary records give us quite a lively idea of Sterne's 
debut in the world of letters. The same prestige has attended 
many an author before and since, who found in London a market 
for his books and an arena for social consideration ; and the real 
significance of such prandial honors as attend success in that 
metropolis is now estimated at its true value. Unless the popular 
author boasts more legitimate credentials than his fame as a 
writer, the " dinners fourteen deep " suggest only a casual posi- 
tion. Walpole, in his usual satirical way, treats the " run " 
which the early volumes of Tristram Shandy enjoyed as one of 



LAURENCE STERNE. 321 

the absurdities of fashion. Johnson sneered at the author's 
countless invitations ; even the amiable Goldsmith called him a 
dull fellow. Warburton repudiated his intimacy, in despair of 
the reform he attempted ; and Gray, the poet, declared it made 
one nervous to hear him preach, because his discourse continually 
vercjed on the lauo;hable. Meanwhile Sterne encountered these 
and other better-founded objections with an insensibility which in 
a nobler cause would have been heroic, but in his case argues 
little else than recklessness. 

Sterne came honestly both by his improvident spirit and his 
clerical title. His great-grandfather was Archbishop of York, 
and his father was killed in a duel which originated in high words 
about a goose. His boyhood was passed in the vagabondage of 
the camp, his young imagination kindled by the stories of Marl- 
borough's veterans ; his prime degraded by intimacy with an 
obscene writer, whose library was a unique collection of works 
especially adapted to pervert his taste ; literary success introduced 
him suddenly to the pleasures of the town, and to the most per- 
ilous of all situations for a man of quick intellect and keen pas- 
sions — that of a favorite diner-out and convivial buffoon ; the 
prestige of an unscrupulous wit awaited him at the French cap- 
ital ; and to all his moral exposures he brought a mind unbraced 
by any clear force of purpose, a nature, both physical and moral, 
far more sensitive than vigorous, with morbid constitutional ten- 
dencies, and enslaved to pleasurable sensations. Thus born and 
bred, the creature of the immediate, only by a rare and felicitous 
union of circumstances was it possible for the flattered author, the 
susceptible cosmopolite, the imaginative epicure, to acquire that 
strength of will and methodical discipline, wherein alone could 
self-respect be intrenched. He must either have met the problem 
of life on perpetual guard, conscious that vigilant resistance was 
his only safety, or retired from its blandishments with heroic self- 
abnegation ; and to neither of these alternatives were his resolu- 
tion and courage adequate. Hence his qid vive philosophy, his 
deliberate search for excitement, the habit of absorbing conscious- 
ness in variety of scene and outward enjoyment, the attempt to 
waive off all mundane annoyance, and even death itself 

So reduced, at one period, was Sterne, that he hired a pane in 



322 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

the window of a stationer's shop, and placed there advertisements 
offering his services to all who stood in need of pen-craft, from the 
indolent vicar desirous of an eloquent sermon, to the uneducatefl 
lover who would fliin register his mistress' charms in an anagram. 
On another occasion, it is related that he stole forth at night, to 
solicit a loan from Garrick ; but, hearing the sounds of festivity 
within, gently replaced the uplifted knocker rather than expose 
his shabby dress by appearing in gay company. Debt and neglect 
made his exit from the world forlorn ; not a single friend minis- 
tered to his dying wants ; and the very companions who had most 
frequently applauded his table-talk were interrupted in their 
mirth by the announcement of his decease. These anecdotes 
form a gloomy contrast to the hues in which Sterne loved to 
depict human life ; for they are unrelieved by cheerfulness, and 
unsoftened by sentiment. Perhaps in all literary history there 
is not a more impressive instance of the inevitable consequence of 
that unnatural divorce between genius and character which turns 
the blessed promise of the former into a mockery It is as pain- 
ful in literature as in life to be charmed, and yet to feel obliged 
to question the spell ; to experience a conflict between the sense 
of beauty and the moral judgment, and to condemn the man while 
we enjoy the author. Quite the reverse of the Oriental benedic- 
tion, " May you die among your kindred ! " was his confessed 
wish. " I certainly declare," he says, " against submitting to 
it [death] before my friends." In accordance with the vagrant 
humor and casual sentiment that gave a charm to his writing and 
a recklessness to his character, he desired to close his existence 
away from home, and to receive the last offices of humanity from 
strangers : and thus it happened. While hirelings were endeav- 
oring to restore circulation to his feet, as he lay in his lodgings 
in Old Bond street, he expired ; not, like Scott, surrounded by 
awed and weeping relatives and dependents; nor, like Cowper, 
with a smile of "holy surprise;" nor, like Johnson, with the 
friends of years tearfully awaiting the sad event. His ties, with 
one or two exceptions, had all been convivial and " sentimental," 
to use his favorite word, rather than aifectionate ; no grand sin- 
cerity of feeKng or' noble self-devotion had enshrined him in the 
hearts of those who were amused by his wit, or softened by his 



LAURENCE STERNE. 323 

pathos ; and the man who, of all English authors, made emotion 
the staple of his writings, and chiefly sought to apply literary art 
to the expression of sentiment, passed away with the paltriest 
oblation, and owed his monument to public charity. 

It is usual to regard the private correspondence of an author as 
the best test of his disposition. We have ample means of this 
nature to aid our judgment. There are domestic letters to his 
wife and daughter, business letters to Foley his banker, friendly 
letters to Garrick, his cousin, and several London and Paris 
acquaintances, and love-letters to Mrs. Draper. In them we dis- 
cover his social relations, his opinions, private life, and tone of 
mind, and can easily perceive the sprightliness and geniality that 
captivated such men as the Baron d'Holbach and Lord Bathurst. 
His letters confirm our theory of his character ; they exhibit the 
extremes of animal spirits, the constant trials of an invalid, the 
caprices of a sensitive and the recklessness of an excitable mind ; 
yet with these defects appear, in equally strong colors, devoted 
parental love, cheerful philosophy, a conscientious regard to the 
claims of family and friends, candor, kindliness, and a sense of 
the beautiful and the true. How variable in his moods, how 
much a creature of mere temperament and sensibility, how prone 
to artificiality in the midst of natural emotion, was this singular 
compound of the man of the world and the sentimental epicure, 
clearly appears in his off-hand epistles. The manner in vfhich he 
meets the arguments of judicious friends, who urged him to sup- 
press objectionable parts of Tristram Shandy, shows conclusively 
that he was deficient in what may be called the instinct of the 
appropriate. It was the fashion in his day for both the aristocracy 
and the literati to indulge in table-talk which now would scarcely 
be tolerated in a barrack; and.it is evident that he calculated 
upon the popularity of an obscene joke, without any adequate 
notion of the defilement it cast on a printed work designed for 
general perusal. In those letters which are addressed to the last 
object of his sentiment, there is displayed an anxiety for her com- 
fort and welfare which betokens genuine disinterestedness ; and, 
during the few weeks preceding his death, a most affectionate soli- 
citude for his child is apparent. A few random extracts will best 
illustrate these diverse traits of his correspondence. 



324 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

'^ She made me stay an hour with her; and in that short space 
I burst into tears a dozen diiFerent times." 

" Heaven forbid the stock of chastity should be lessened by the 
life and opinions of Tristram Shandy ! I can assure you that 
the very passages and descriptions you propose that I should 
sacrifice in my second edition, are what are best relished by men 
of wit, and some others whom I esteem as sound critics." 

" I never knew what it was to say or write one premeditated 
word in my whole life." 

" Till I have the honor to be as much maltreated as Rabelais 
and Swift were, I must continue humble. I care not a curse for 
the critics." 

" Lyd has a pony which she delights in. 'T is a very agreea- 
ble ride out in a chaise I purchased for my wife. Whilst they 
take these diversions, I am scribbling away at my Tristram. So 
much am I delighted with my Uncle Toby's character, that I am 
become an enthusiast." 

" I Shandy it away fifty times more than I was ever wont." 

" We are every night fiddling, laughing, and singing, and 
cracking jokes." 

" We live all the longer for having things our own way. This 
is my conjugal maxim." 

" Write, dear Lydia, whatever comes into your little head." 

" I am but this moment returned from Scarborough, and have 
received marvellous strength, had I not debilitated it as fast as I 
got it, by playing the good fellow with Lord Granby and Co." 

"I set out to lay a portion of it out (money derived from 
Tristram and Sermons) in the service of the world, in a tour 
round Italy ; where I shall spring game, or the deuce is in the 
dice." 

" Almost all the nobility of England honor me with their 
names." 

" After all this badinage, my heart is innocent: and the sport- 
ing of my pen is equal, just equal, to what I did in my boyish 
days, when I got astride of a stick, and galloped away." 

" Praised be God for my sensibility ! Though it has often 
made me wretched, yet I would not exchange it for all the 
pleasures the grossest sensualist ever felt." 



LAURENCE STERNE. 325 

^' Since I got home to quietness, and temperance, and good 
books, and good hours, I have mended; and am now very 
stout." 

" There is so little true feeling in the herd of the world, that 
I wish I could have got an act of parliament, when the hooks first 
appeared, that none but wise men should look into them." 

" My girl cannot form a wish that is in the power of her father 
that he will not gratify her in. I am never alone. The kindness 
of my friends is ever the same : I wish, though, I had thee to 
nurse me. God bless thee, my child ! " 

"Dearest, kindest, gentlest, and best of women ! may health, 
peace, and happiness, prove your handmaids ! If I die, cherish 
the remembrance of me, and forget the follies which you so often 
condemned — which my heart, not my head, betrayed me into. 
Should my child, my Lydia, want a mother, may I hope you will 
(if she is left parentless) take her to your bosom? " 

We cannot, with some of the wholesale censurers of Sterne, 
find merely the proofs of licentious intrigue, even in the most 
lover- like of these epistles, — those addressed to the wife of an 
Indian nabob. The lady appears to have been one of the most 
fragile of beings, and to have possessed that ethereal grace of 
character so often coincident with delicate organizations. Sterne 
takes infinite pains to convince her that he is not captivated by 
her beauty, but inspired by her truth, refinement, and social 
talents. She afiects him in so genial a way that he wishes he 
could write under the immediate influence of her presence: His 
advice to her is excellent. It is directed against the too easy and 
frank disposition usually found in combination with such beautiful 
traits of character. "Reverence thyself," is his constant and 
wise monition. He proposes to her a visit to his wife and daugh- 
ter, and promises that their friendship and care shall alleviate 
her physical sufferings ; buys an arm-chair and other comforts as 
for an invalid, and begs her to avoid her newly-painted cabin 
when about to embark for the East. In short, the candor and 
solicitude of a tender and undisguised interest, which he evidently 
vrisbes his family and intimates to share, appear in the midst of 
his most sentimental outpourings. 

In presenting a new volume* of his sermons to an intimate 
28 



326 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

friendj Sterne declared that 'they were dictated hj his heart, 
while his other writings came from his head. The style of these 
discourses is fluent, clear, and sometimes elegant ; they are, how- 
ever, more ingenious than impressive, and their eloquence is 
didactic rather .than glowing. It is easy to recognize the author 
of Tristram Shandy even in the most chastened of his homilies. 
They indicate a knowledge of the world ; Shakspeare is quoted ; 
the text is sometimes opposed, by way of more effectually clinch- 
ing the argument at last ; a parable of Scripture narrative is 
often gracefully elaborated, and there is constant allusion to, and 
defence of, the compassionate virtues. In view of the limits pre- 
scribed to this species of writing, and compared with the average 
sermons of the Establishment in his day, they may be justly 
declared to possess uncommon interest in both matter and expres- 
sion ; but their tone is too much subdued, and the preacher 
hovers too near the brink of the humorous and the colloquial, for 
earnestness. He is most at home in eulogizing affection and 
sympathy, and in reproducing Bible stories, of one of which he 
says, "Like all others, much of it depends upon the telling.*' 
His two characteristics — frankness and susceptibility — are advo- 
cated with zest. " Be open," he remarks, in allusion to marriage, 
*'be honest; give yourself for what you are: conceal nothing: 
varnish nothing ; and, if these fair weapons will not do, better 
not to conquer at all than conquer for a day." And elsewhere, 
"Let the torpid monk seek heaven comfortless and alone. God 
speed him ! For my own part^ I fear I should never so find the 
way ; let me be wise and religious, but let me be a man." 

In our restless times, the perpetual digressions of Sterne excite 
impatience ; yet, in the contemplative mood which genuine reading 
demands, this fragmentary and desultory style has its advantages. 
We seem to participate in the authorship, to enter into the pro- 
cess of the book : and, if sympathetic, we soon catch the spirit of 
leisure and speculation, the random and capricious taste of the 
writer, surrendering, at last, according to his wish, the reins of 
imagination into his genial hand. This is especially requisite to 
enjoy Sterne. He does not rely upon strong outlines and remark- 
able incidents, but upon the atmosphere of his narratives and 
lucubrations. Much of his material is but the transcript of vague 



LAURENCE STERNE. 327 

musing. He deals with no improbabilities, and calls himself ' ■ ii 
small hero," and "the sport of fortune; " but his pages. Tvrought 
as the J are chiefly out of common experience, win over readers 
by their familiarity of detail and their candor. He seems to be 
minutely observant under the inspiration of a passionless ideal- 
ity. There is, too, a vagrant humor in both his thought and his 
style, which has a peculiar charm, especially to the unadventur- 
ous dreamer. To read Tristram Shandy is like comparing notes 
with a kindly, eccentric, philosophical good fellow, somewhat of 
a scholar, but more of a human creature, who "loves a jest in 
his heart," can rail good-naturedly at the world, and is consoled 
by wit and animal spirits for its neglect. We soon, therefore, 
accede to his purpose, honestly avowed, and let " familiarity grow 
into friendship." 

The then recent battles of Marlborough, and his own recollec- 
tions of barrack and transport, naturally filled Sterne's mind 
with the technicalities and the enthusiasm of the soldier's pro- 
fession reproduced so quaintly in Uncle Toby and Trim. His 
attainments were quite limited, but, as with the majority of 
belles-lettres authors, a taste for miscellaneous reading, and an 
aptitude for seizing on available materials, whether found in 
books or in life, supplied him with the needful resources from 
which to elaborate his wit and humor. All that he required was 
a nucleus for imagination, a starting-point for random cogitation 
and sentiment ; and this he found at one moment in an historical 
anecdote, at another in a domestic incident, now in a logical 
proposition, and again in a Parisian shop, or a Calais inn-yard. 

It detracts nothing from Sterne's originality, that the proto- 
types of his characters have been, in many instances, identified. 
It is the coloring, rather than the invention, of his ^vritings, in 
which consists their peculiar charm. As in the plots of Shak- 
speare, and the travels of Byron, what of mere incident occurs 
is chiefly important as a nucleus for his idiosyncrasies. It is the 
treatment, and not the theme, that wins our sympathies. To use 
a chemical figure of speech, the scenes and personages to which 
he introduces us serve mainly to precipitate the humor and senti- 
ment of the author. The papers on Sterne by Dr. Ferriar, pre- 
served in the Transactions of the Manchester Society, are but 



328 TUE SENTIMENTALIST. 

curious literary researches, and throw comparatively no light on 
the real genius of Yorick. However largely he was indebted to 
old Burton and Rabelais, the individuality of his conceptions 
remains. Take away the plot, the scholarship, and the anecdoti- 
cal episodes, and we have still a fund of quaint generalization, a 
special vein of pathetic and humorous sentiment, which consti- 
tutes the real claim of Sterne as an author. The deliiiht which 
Dr. Ferriar derived from him was quite independent of his bor- 
rowed plumes ; it came from the cleverness of his satire, and the 
power of inducing a mood of quiet emotion and gentle mirth ; 
and especially from a suggestive faculty, in which no English 
author excels him. 

He opened to the mass of English readers that attractive 
domain in literature, which Rousseau in France, and Richter m 
Germany, made popular ; though in him, unfortunately, it was 
not linked with aspirations for social amelioration, as in Jean 
Jacques, nor with deep-hearted sympathies, as in Jean Paul. 
Sterne was organized to feel and to evolve, but not to hallow and 
realize, those beautiful emotions of the soul in which so essen- 
tially consist its glory and its bane. In his hands the work 
degenerated too often into ''the art of talking amusing non- 
sense; " it was debased by indecency, and made contemptible by 
caprice. Burns declared that he put himself on the regimen of 
admiring a fine woman, in order to secure inspiration. Sterne 
said that he had been in love with some Dulcinea, all his life, 
because it " sweetened his temper." He was an amorous jester, 
a sentimental epicure, and his theory was to make the most of 
life by adroitly skimming its surface. The tender passion was a 
means of casual luxury, not a serious experience. He protested 
against gravity, and, as Goldoni fought off the spleen by habitu- 
ally standing on his guard like a wary fencer, Sterne adopted 
mirth as a panacea, clutching at the straws on the tide of sorrow 
with the childish impulse of desperation. "I am fabricating 
them" (the last volume of Tristram Shandy), he says, "for the 
laughing part of the world ; for the melancholy part of it, I have 
nothing but my prayers." 

There was a decided taste in Sterne's day for those colloquial 
treatises, lay sermons, and minor speculations, which, under the 



LAURENCE STERNE. 329 

name of the British Essayists, form a department of literature 
peculiar to England : and this taste was united in the uneducated 
with a love of narrative and fiction, to which De Foe, and other 
raconteurs^ ministered. The two were admirably combined in 
Sterne; his writings are made up, in about equal proportions, of 
speculation and description — now a portrait, and now a reverie ; 
on one page ingenious argument, on the next, humorous anec- 
dote. Thus something seems provided for every literary palate ; 
and his desultory plan, or want of plan, became a chief source of 
his popularity. That he was conscious of an original vein, not- 
withstanding the abundant material of which he availed himself, 
may be inferred from his self-complacent query, " Shall we for- 
ever make new books, as the apothecaries make new mixtures, by 
pouring only out of one vessel into another ? " 

Perhaps the absence of constructive art increased the popular- 
ity of Sterne. To many readers there is a charm in the bold- 
ness which sets rules at defiance ; and the author of Tristram 
Shandy not only braved that sense of propriety which is an 
instinct of better natures, but seemed to take a wanton delight in 
writing a book without any regard to established precedents, 
either in its arrangement or the development of its subject. He 
was the reverse of careless, however, in his habits of composi- 
tion, and, running through all his apparent indifierence of mood, 
there is obvious a trick of art. It is in the use of his materials, 
rather than in style, that he violates the order of a finished nar- 
ration. Gathering from the storehouse of a tenacious memory 
what he had heard of fortifications, camp life, obstetrics, and for- 
eign countries, and linking them together with curious gleanings 
of eradition, he gave vitality and interest to the whole by the 
introduction of several original and well-sustained characters, and 
occasional passages of skilful dialogue and pathetic story. The 
result was a rrdlange, whose fragmentary shape and indecent 
allusions were counterbalanced, though by no means atoned for, 
by felicitous creations, and the graphic limning of still-life. He 
has candidly given us his own theory of authorship. " Digres- 
sions," he says, " are the sunshine; they are the life and soul of 
reading." Instead of apologizing for an episode, he calls it ''a 
master stroke of digressive skill." " To write a book," he else- 
28* 



330 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

where observes, ''is for all the world like humming a song: be 
but in tune with yourself, 'tis no matter how high or how low 
you take it." 

The best illustration of these traits is the " Sentimental Jour- 
ney," the author's last, most finished, and most harmonious work. 
Borrow traversed Spain to distribute the Bible. Inglis to trace 
the footsteps of Don Quixote ; Addison explored Italy for classi- 
cal localities, Forsyth to investigate her architecture ; Beckford 
revelled in the luxuries of art and climate ; English travellers in 
America have applied microscopic observation to republican de- 
fects ; some tourists have taken for their speclalUe geology, oth- 
ers prison-reform, others physical geography, — some gossip, and 
some ridicule ; but Yorick alone, so far as we are informed, has 
chased in foreign regions the phantom of sentiment, and sought 
food for emotion. The very idea of the book combines the hu- 
morous and the pathetic, in that conscious, playful way which 
individualizes Sterne among English authors. To set out upon 
one's Continental travels predetermined to enfold all experience, 
however familiar and commonplace, w^th an atmdfephere of senti- 
ment, and to note the sensations, moods, tears, sighs, and laughs, 
which beset a susceptible pilgrim, has in it a comic element, while 
there was just enough of reality in the states of mind recorded to 
banish the notion of a mere fancy sketch. "My design in it," 
said Sterne, " was to teach us to love the world and our fellow- 
creatures better," He is too little in earnest, — too sentimental, 
in the present acceptation of that word, — to have succeeded in 
this purpose as a man of deeper and less capricious feelings might 
have done ; but, on the other hand, his book, considered as a lit- 
erary experiment and a personal revelation, is a psychological 
curiosity. It admirably shows the difference between a man of 
sentiment and a sentimental man. The latter character is depicted 
to the life. Incorrigible to the last in the matter of equivoques 
and innuendoes, he has deformed this otherwise dainty narrative 
with indecencies that offer a remarkable contrast to the delicacy 
of perception and style which has rendered the work a kind of 
classic in the library of English travels. " What a large volume 
of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by 
him who interests his heart in everything!" This is the text 



LAURENCE STERNE. 331. 

of the " Sentimental Journey, " and it is founded on a genuine idi- 
osyncrasy. Human nature boasts of more generous, permanent, 
and profound sensibilities than have to do with such a cosmopoli- 
tan and superficial heart; yet its exhibition forms one of those 
odd and suggestive chapters in life that aid our study of charac- 
ter. The design of the work once approved, no one can complain 
of the execution, always excepting the violations of propriety in 
certain of the episodes. A monk asking alms, a widow, servanis 
on holiday, a dwarf whose view of the opera is interrupted by a 
tall soldier, a man lamenting his dead ass, an imaginary cap- 
tain, a polite beggar, a crazed beggar-girl, an impoverished knight 
of St. Louis selling pates ^ — these, and similar by-way children 
of misfortune, are the subjects of the wanderer's compassion and 
reveries, with occasional memories of Eugenius and Eliza, and 
of his wife and daughter, who serve as permanent resources upon 
which his emotion falls back when no fresh object presents itself. 
In the hands of an ordinary writer these would prove ineifective 
materials ; but Sterne has made distinct and rich pictures of them 
all. If the feeling smacks of affectation, wit embalms and re- 
deems it. We are constantly disposed, as we read, to echo the 
Count de B 's exclamation when Yorick talked him into pro- 
curing a passport, — " C'est hlen dit ;" so easy, colloquial, and 
often most nicely balanced, is the style. The short chapters are 
like cabinet pictures, neatly outlined and softly tinted ; we carry 
from them an impression which lingers like a favorite air. How 
often have authors taken from this work a valuable hint, and, 
avoiding its exceptionable qualities, elaborately imitated its word- 
painting and its atmosphere ! It modified the literature of 
travel, which previously bore marks of utter carelessness, by 
indicating the artistic capabilities of a species of books that had 
been deemed mere vehicles of statistical and circumstantial infor- 
mation. 

Sterne often quotes Sancho Panza, and invokes the ''gentle 
spirit of sweetest humor, who erst did sit upon the easy pen of 
his beloved Cervantes;" and it is probable that Don Quixote 
suggested the '' Sentimental Journey." As " the Knight of the 
Rueful Countenance" went forth, with a peasant for a squire, in 
pursuit of chivalric adventures, so the author sets out, with a 



• 332 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

French valet, on a crusade of sentiment. The Don saw every- 
thing through the lens of knight-errantry, and the susceptible 
pilgrim beholds the world through the medium of an exaggerated 
tenderness. The relations of Sancho and La Fieur to their mas- 
ters are parallel, however diverse their characters. The incidents 
which Sterne arrays in an imaginative guise are as commonplace 
in themselves as those which Cervantes uses as materials for his 
hero's enthusiasm. What the windmill and the way-side inn are 
to the one, the Remise door and the glove-shop are to the other. 
In its effect, too, upon the reader's mind, this exaggerated con- 
tact of sentiment with every-day life is as humorous as that of 
ancient chivalry with modern utilitarianism ; an equally salient 
contrast and a like quaint vein are opened. Speculation, anec- 
dote, the high and the low, the vulgar and the ideal, blend their 
associations, both in the Spanish romance, and the " Sentimental 
Journey ] " but all are enveloped in an atmosphere of harmonious 
feeling, and clothed in graceful language. This analogy is in- 
creased by the fact, that, as the readers of Don Quixote are 
enlightened as to the knight's habits by the garrulous squire, so 
to the valet of the sentimental pilgrim are we indebted for the 
little authentic information extant regarding Sterne's real state 
of mind. La Fleur, indeed, was as much an original in his way 
as his master. A native of Burgundy in the humblest circum- 
stances, he followed the occupation of a drummer for six years, in 
order to see the world ; and an officer of the regiment to which 
he w^as attached obtained for him the situation of a valet to a Mi- 
lord An^lois, in which capacity he was afterwards employed by 
Sterne. His wife ran off with an actor, and he felt so much at 
home in England, that, during the latter part of his life, he was 
often employed as a courier, and was sent on repeated missions 
across the Channel. He used to surprise his master in fits of 
profound melancholy, whence, upon being observed, he would sud- 
denly rouse himself with some flippant expression. He declares 
that the sight of misery usually affected Sterne to tears ; that he 
was charitable, and used to make frequent notes of his daily expe- 
rience; and that his conversation with women was "of the most 
interesting kind, and left them serious, if it did not find them 
so." The incidents so daintily recorded in his travels, La Fleur 



LAURENCE STERNE. 333 

likewise authenticated ; and through hira we know tliat his mas- 
ter busilj collected materials for a work on Italy during his tour 
in that country, although he never could succeed in speaking 
Italian. 

In the history of English literature, there is, now and then, a 
writer who seems to have caught his tone from the other side of 
the Channel. The Gallic school was imitated by Pope and Con- 
greve, though in the former it is exhibited rather in style than in 
range of thought. Brilliancy, artistical refinement, and graceful 
expression, are the characteristics of this class of writers ; they 
deal rather in manners than in passions ; fancy usurps with them 
the place of imagination, wit that of reflection: animal spirits, 
instead of soul-felt emotions, seem to inspire theii- muse ; they 
are not often in earnest except in the desire to please ; and, more 
ingenious than profound, with more tact than elevation, they offer 
an entire contrast to the manly, intense, frank utterance of Queen 
Elizabeth's dramatists, and the pure love of nature of the modern 
bards. Sterne partakes largely of the light graces and the viva- 
cious tone of the best French writers ; and one reason of his 
popularity is the refreshment his countrymen always derive from 
the less grave and more sprightly attractions of their Continental 
neighbors. "They order this matter better in France," was a 
maxim which Sterne's taste and temper made applicable not only 
to the economy, but to the philosophy, of life, of which his view 
was the opposite of serious. The foreign perversion which was 
introduced into English literature during the licentious era of the 
Restoration was casual and temporary. The writers- then so 
fashionable are nearly all forgotten, while those of the age of 
Elizabeth and Anne maintain their just and clear supremacy. 
In a few instances, however, the influence of French taste 
moulded works on the English side of the Channel which the 
genius of the authors redeemed from neglect, in spite of an ele- 
ment alien to the Saxon mind; and such was the case with 
Sterne's writings. 

This Continental affinity is still more ob\ious in his love of the 
old French raconteurs. Dr. Ferriar traces his manner directly 
to Marivaux ; and it is equally significant that no English writer 
has been more completely domesticated on the Continent. Though 



334 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

we find cheap editions of Young and Dr. Franklin in the book-stalls 
of Paris and Florence, the gloomy speculation of the one and the 
practical wisdom of the other are but vaguely appreciated in 
France and Italy, while the sentimental refinements and genial 
musings of Sterne adapt themselves readily to their more sus- 
ceptible and imaginative minds. It is true that the usual absurd 
mistakes occur which seem inevitable in the French interpretation 
of English literature, — one critic accepting Tristram Shandy as 
a veritable biography, and another classifying its author with the 
social innovators and daring thinkers of the revolutionary era ; 
yet, on the other hand, very faithful translations of Sterne, espe- 
cially in Italian, are not only obtainable, but have become the 
favorite reading of that large class who delight in Foscolo. 

A recent critic * denies to Sterne all exact proficiency in the 
French language, and cites many errors to prove his incorrect- 
ness; as, for instance, c'est tout egalior c est egal^ M. Anglois 
instead of M. l' Anglois, etc. La Fleur, in speaking of a horse, 
is made to say, C^est un cheval le plus opiniatre du rnonde, 
and it is argued that a good French scholar would never have 
applied the word opiniatre to a horse, nor substituted the article 
un for le. In the chapter on "The Passport,"' also, ces Mes- 
sieurs les Anglois should be Messieurs les Aiiglois. The correct 
French in the Drummer's letter, it is declared from internal 
evidence, is not Sterne's. Colloquial blunders, however, do not 
invalidate the Gallic pretensions of this author, whose natural 
affinity with his mercurial neighbors across the Channel is self- 
evident. French criticisms of English literature are proverbially 
superficial, and often ludicrous. Voltaire talks of Shakspeare, 
Chateaubriand of Milton, and Guizot of modern British poets, in 
terms of vague generalization, which show that at best they have 
only appreciated the tone, without penetrating to the deep signifi- 
cance and individual genius, of these authors. It is otherwise 
with such a writer as Sterne, although some amusing errors have 
occurred in the French estimate of his aims and character. The 
qualities which rendered him popular and eccentric are quite as 
well recognized by the nation he loved so dearly as at home. 

* Notes and Queries, 



LAURENCE STERNE. 335 

Bayle describes him as •' uniquement occupe a etudier ses sensa- 
tions, ses gouts, ses penchants particuliers, a rendre un compte 
exact et minutieux des emotions qu'il eprouve et des hasards qui 
les font naitre." He calls him " malin, pathetique," notes his 
" simplicite," his " sensibilite exquise et douce," his "expres- 
sion fine, plaisante et moquese qu'indique un esprit vif, brillant, 
et caustique." " Sa conversation," he observes, " etait animee 
et spirituelle ; son caractere jovial mais capricieux et inegal, con- 
sequence naturel d'un temperament irritable et d'un mauvais etat 
de sante habituelle," and he declares him a '-'• 'plagiare^^ who 
arranged ^^ sa mosaique avec tant d^art.^^* A more discrim- 
inating and true portrait of Sterne bj a foreign critic can scarcely 
be imagined. 

The vagrant boyhood of Sterne, as the offspring of an army 
officer, his school-days in Yorkshire, followed by the academical 
training of Cambridge, and twenty years of clerical life, such as 
it was in his day, when desultory reading, field sports, and gossip, 
occupied more time than priestly functions, afford sufficient mate- 
rials for the kind of culture and the knowledge of life which his 
writings display ; and if to these resources we add the ordinary 
incidents of Continental travel and the habit of amateur exercises 
in music and painting, we can easily trace the external elements 
that constitute the framework or ingredients of his books. Their 
real interest was altogether derived from the idiosyncrasies of the 
author. These were at first inappropriately confined to a profes- 
sion for which he was singularly unfitted ; and it is one of the most 
remarkable facts in his career, that not until past middle life did 
he achieve a literary reputation. His tendencies of character, as 
well as of mind, were utterly opposed to the office which, accord- 
ing to the irrational, not to say impious, system of dispensing 
church livings, was, for reasons altogether factitious and worldly, 
bestowed upon a man who, as one of the coterie of wits about 
town, of courtiers, politicians, or in any lay vocation, might have 
left a reputation comparatively free from blame. His profession 
was a continued reproach to his levity, and has caused him to be 
judged by subsequent moralists with severity ; while his name 

* BiograpMe Universelle. 



336 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

has become a standar«.l example of the insincerity of authors and 
the illusions of sentiment* — the prototype and representative of 
the class who weep over the corpse of a donkey and at the same 
time maltreat their wives. 

All incomplete characters must undergo an analytical sifting 
to separate the chaff from the wheat ; and a like process is requi- 
site in literature, where the superiority of a writer in certain 
particulars is modified by great defects in others. To no English 
author is the careful separation of gross alloy from pure metal 
more indispensable than in the case of Sterne. Time, which 
shapes reputation as well as the less abstract interests of humanity 
to ''a perfect end," has already effected this result. A few 
genuine characters, episodes of true pathos, sketches of life drawn 
with exquisite art, phases of delicate sentiment, pictures traced 
and mellowed with remarkable tact and beauty, — these have 
survived whole pages of equivocal morality and pedantic display. 
Such are "the Story of Lefewe," and " Maria," and the char- 
acters of Uncle Toby, Trim, Obadiah, Dr. Slop, and Shandy. 
It is the originality of characterization, and finished bits of humor 
and of sentiment, that redeem both the writings and the fame of 
Sterne. What is indecorous and obscure is rejected by the lite- 
rary gleaner; and the tedious digressions, the stolen erudition, 
the violations of good taste, and the artificial expedients, are for- 
gotten in the occasional triumphs of art and nature which the 
genius of the author produced in his better moments. This par- 
tial success, this obscure glory, is a striking instance of the truth 
of Pope's trite maxim, that " w^ant of decency is want of sense.'" 

Not a little of our interest in Sterne is historical. The vein 
he opened has been more deeply worked by subsequent authors. 
Compared with the later essayists, his didactic passages w^ant 
sustained glow and point; compared with succeeding novelists, 
his characters are deficient in variety and impressiveness ; but in 
his speculations and his pictures he has produced studies of char- 
acterization. Artistically speaking, few English authors have 
proved more suggestive. Without elaborate finish, he furnishes 
perfect hints. His writings are to others of the same order which 
have since appeared, as the cartoons of the old masters are to the 
historical pictures of their followers. In the long array of the 



LAURENCE STERNE. 337 

novelist's creations, " the beings of the mind and not of claj," 
from those of Fielding to those of Dickens, we linger before the 
few but well-defined originals of Sterne with a peculiar sense of 
their human significance. Unideal and unimpassioned, yet distinct 
and natural, they have the rare merit of exciting an interest with- 
out any extraordinary traits of adventures; they embody the 
genius of humor, reality made attractive by its consistent, habit- 
ual, minute exhibition; they are like the best Flemish paintings, 
mellow in tone, familiar in subject, and marvellous in execution, — 
true to Nature in her quips and fantasies, in her whims and every- 
day phases, rather than in deep or wonderful crises. In his way, 
Sterne is Shakspearian ; and, although superseded to a great 
degree, he keeps a hold upon intelligent sympathy .by the origin- 
ality of his manner, which is constantly reproduced in popular 
literature. 

Indeed, if a constant though unacknowledged and perhaps often 
unconscious reference to an author's scenes and ideas, and the 
frequent imitation of his style by subsequent aspirants for literary 
distinction, may be considered as a reliable test of originality and 
success, Laurence Sterne, notwithstanding the blots on his 
escutcheon, occupies a permanent niche in the temple of fame. 
Indirect memorials of his genius abound. Ball Hughes modelled 
the delectable group of Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman ; 
and Leslie's delicate pencil traced Yorick at the Glove-Shop. 
Travellers who land at Calais daily think of the " Sentimental 
Journey " as the porters on the quay vociferate '■'■Hotel D ossein ;^^ 
and advocates, when hard pressed to combat testimony, allude 
magnanimously to the impracticable witness by quoting the inci- 
dent of Uncle Toby and the fly. " There is room enough for 
thee and me," is the most convenient of philanthropic evasions. 
The schoolboy early learns to regard Sterne as a master of the 
pathetic, through familiarity with the story of Lefevre in his 
well-thumbed reader. An American bishop is said to have con- 
sumed whole evenings in searching the Bible for the sentence he 
proposed to use as a text for his next sermon, " Grod tempers the 
winds to the shorn lamb," and to have blushed when he was 
informed that the author of that gentle and endeared saying was 
no other than the most indecorous genius of his own order ; and 
29 



338 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

a celebrated New York medical professor of the old school quoted 
Tristram Shandy so habitually in his lectures, that country 
students used to ask, at the bookstores, for " Dr. Sterne's Mid- 
wifery." " Shandean ". long ago became an adjective as signifi- 
cant and common as " Pickwickian" is to-day. 

Among the popular writers who have either directly followed 
the vein of Sterne, or profited by his style, are Mackenzie, Irving, 
and Dickens. Many favorite volumes of "Reveries," by bach- 
elors and others, now in vogue, are of his identical model. The 
desultory and quaintly simple yet learned production of Southey, 
•'The Doctor," is essentially the same in plan as Tristram Shandy; 
Curran imitated Sterne in his letters ; while a still more remark- 
able evidence of the popularity of our author's manner may be 
found in the fact that, after Sir Bulwer Lytton had run through 
the entire scale of the intense school of novel-writing, he sur- 
prised his admirers, and won over a iiew and previously antag- 
onistic circle, by producing in " My Novel " a work of fiction so 
palpably imitated from Sterne as, in many passages, to have the 
efiect of prolonging the key-note of his sentiment and exhibiting 
a rifacirnento of his style. 

In one noble mansion in London is his bust by Nollekens, and 
in another the famous portrait of him by Reynolds, copies of 
which have long been favorite illustrations with the disciples of 
Lavater and Gall. In Old Bond street. No. 41, now a cheese- 
monger's, but known in his day as " The Silk Bag-shop," are 
the lodgings whence are dated many of his letters, where, accord- 
ing to tradition, he finished the " Sentimental Journey," and 
where occurred his melancholy death. In the burial-ground 
fronting Hyde-Park, on the road to Bays water, about the centre 
of the western wall, is the headstone that marks his grave, set 
up, as the best of London guide-books truly declares, " with an 
unsuitable inscription," by a "tippling fraternity of Free- 
masons." 

The most interesting problem involved in his career as an 
author is the rank he holds as an expositor of sentiment. Critics 
have viewed him, in this regard, at the two extremes of hypoc- 
risy and sincerity, of artifice and of truth. In order justly to 
estimate Sterne with reference to this, his most obvious claim and 



LAUREN C E STERNE. 

purpose, we must consider the true relation between human feel- 
ing and its written expression. 

Sentiment, as an element of literature, is the intellectual 
embodiment of feeling ; it is thought imbued with a coloring and 
an atmosphere clerived from emotion. Its reality, duration, and 
tone, depend in books, as in character, upon alliance with other 
qualities ; and there is no fallacy more common than that "w hich 
tests its sincerity in the author by the permanent traits of the 
man. It may be quite subordina.te as a motive of action, and 
altogether secondary as a normal condition, and yet it is none the 
less real while it lasts. In each artist and author, sentiment 
exists in relation to other qualities, which essentially modify it 
while they do not invalidate its claim. To say that a man who 
writes an elegy which moves us to tears, and at the same time 
displays the most heartless conduct in his social life, is therefore 
a hypocrite, is to reason without discrimination. The adhesive- 
ness, the conscience, and the temperament, of each individual, 
directly influence his sentiment ; in one case giving to it the intens- 
ity of passion, in another the sustained dignity of principle, now 
causing it to appear as an incidental mood, and again as a perma- 
nent characteristic. United to strength of will or to earnestness 
of spirit, it is worthy of the highest confidence ; in combination 
with a feeble and impressible mind, or a lightsome and capricious 
fancy, or a selfish disposition, it is quite unreliable. In either 
case, however, the quality itself is genuine ; its type and degree 
only are to be questioned. Thus regarded, the apparent incon- 
gruity betAveen its expression and its actual condition vanishes. 

Sentiment in Burns was essentially modified by tenderness, in 
Byron by passion, in Shelley by imagination ; meditation fostered 
it in Petrarch, extreme susceptibility in Kirke White. In the 
French Quietists it took the form of religious ecstasy. In the 
Old English drama it is robust, in the Spanish ballads chivalric, 
in Hamlet abstract and intellectual, in "As You Like It" full 
of airy fancifulness. Miss Edgeworth and Jane Austen exhib- 
ited it as governed by prudence and common sense ; Mrs. Rad- 
cliffe, as rendered mysterious by superstition. Scott delighted to 
interpret it through local and legendary accessories, under the 
influence of a sensuous temperament. In the Dantesque picture 



340 THE SENTIMENTALIST. 

of Francesca da Rimini it is full of tragic sweetness, and in Paul 
and Virginia perverted bj artificial taste. In Charles Lamb it 
is quaint, in Ilood deeply human, in Gowper alternately natural 
and morbid, in Mackenzie soft and pale as moonlight, and in 
Boccaccio warm as the glow of a Tuscan vintage. Chastened by 
will, it is as firm and cold as sculpture in Alfieri, and melted by 
indulgence, it is as insinuating as the most delicious music in 
Metastasio. Pure and gentle in Raphael, it is half savage in 
Salvator and Michael Angelo ; severely true in Vandyke, it is 
luscious and coarse in Rubens. And yet, to a certain extent and 
under specific modifications, every one of these authors and artists 
possessed sentiment ; but, held in solution by character, in some 
it governed, in others it served genius ; in some it was a predom- 
inant source of enjoyment and suffering, and in others but an 
occasional stimulus or agency. Who doubts, over a page of the 
Nouvelle Heloise, that sentiment in all its tearful bliss was 
known to Rousseau ? The abandonment of his offspring to public 
charity does not disprove its existence, but only shows that in his 
nature it was a mere selfish instinct. The history of philanthro- 
pic enterprise indicates the same contradiction. Base cruelty has 
at times deformed the knight, gross appetites the crusader, hypoc- 
risy the missionary, and the men whose names figure in the 
so-called charitable movements of our day are often the last to 
whom Ave should appeal for personal kindness and sympathy. 
The same inconsistency is evident in that large class of women 
in whose characters the romantic predominates over the domestic 
instincts. " Confessions " form a popular department of French 
literature, and are usually based on sentiment. Yet their authors 
are frequently thorough men of the world and intense egotists. 
It is this want of harmony between expression and life, between 
the eloquent avowal and the practical influence of sentiment, 
patriotic, religious, and humane, which gave rise to the invective 
of Carlyle, and the other stern advocates of fact, of action, and 
of reality. Meanwhile the beauty, the high capacity, the exalted 
grace of sentiment itself, is uninvaded. We must learn to distin- 
guish its manifestations, to honor its genuine power, to distrust its 
rhetorical exasf aeration. 

The truth is, that Sterne's heart was more sensitive than 



LAURENCE STERNE. 341 

robust. It was like " wax to receive," but not like "marble to 
retain," impressions. Their evanescence, therefore, does not 
impugn their reality. Perhaps we owe the superiority of their 
artistic expression to this want of stability. Profound and con- 
tinuous emotion finds but seldom its adequate record. Men thus 
swayed recoil from self-contemplation ; their peace of mind is 
better consulted by turning from than by dwelling upon their 
states of feeling ; whereas more frivolous natures may dally with 
and make capital of their sentiment without the least danger of 
insanity. We have but to study the portrait of Sterne in order 
to feel that a highly nervous organization made him singularly 
alive to the immediate, while it unfitted him for endurance and 
persistency. That thin, pallid countenance, that long, attenuated 
figure, the latent mirth of the expression, the predominance of 
the organs of wit and ideality, betoken a man to "set the table 
in a roar," — one w^ho passes easily from smiles to tears, from 
whose delicately strung yet unheroic mould the winds of life draw 
plaintive and gay, but transient music ; — a being more artistic 
than noble, more susceptible than generous, capable of a shadowy 
grace and a fitful brilliancy, but without the power to dignify and 
elevate sensibility. His fits of depression, his recourse to amuse- 
ment, his favorite watchword, " Vive la hagatelle^^'' his caprice 
and trifling, his French view of life, his alternate gayety and blue 
devils, attest one of those ill-balanced characters, amusing in 
society, ingenious in literature, but unsatisfactory in more inti- 
mate relations and higher spheres. 
29^- 



THE LITERARY STATESMAN 

MASSIMO D^AZEGLIO. 



It is seldom that the noble aims and benign sentiments of the 
genuine artist find development in life. His efficiency, however 
refined and graceful in itself, rarely can be traced to a practical 
issue ; his dominion is usually confined to the vague realms of 
thought, and his name is familiar only to those who explore the 
world of fancy and ideas. A rare and beautiful exception to this 
abstract career of the artist in literature was recently visible in 
the case of Massimo d'Azeglio, the late secretary of state of 
Sardinia. It became his fortunate destiny to realize in action the 
dreams of his youth ; to administer, to a certain extent at least, 
the principles which previously found only written expression ; 
and to be the agent of some of the political and social ameliora- 
-tions, which, at a less auspicious era, he could but suggest, illus- 
trate, and prophesy. We can hardly imagine a more elevated 
satisfaction to a generous mind than the privilege of thus making 
tangible what was once ideal, carrying into afiairs the results of 
deliberate study, and giving social embodiment to long-cherished 
and patiently-evolved truths. To feel the interest and realize 
the significance of such a career, we must compare the first woi'k 
of the gifted novelist with the last discourse of the minister of 
foreign afiairs : and trace his identity of opinion and sentiment, 
from the glowing patriotism of "Niccolo de' Lapi" and "Ettore 
Fieramosca," to the reforms which have rendered Sardinia the 
most free and progressive of the Italian states. 



MASSIMO d'AZEGLIO. ^43 

It is through his genuine patriotism, indeed, that D'Azeglio 
is both a popular writer and a liberal statesman ; his fictions are 
derived from the same inspiration as his public acts ; he is a man 
of the people, and an efficient and honored citizen of Italy, bj 
virtue of a love of country not less remarkable for intelligence 
than for sincerity. This is his great distinction. Neither to 
the circumstances of his bu'th, education, nor experience, is he 
indebted for the independence, wisdom, and zeal of his national 
feeling, but altogether to the promptings of a noble heart and 
vigorous understanding. This eminent trait both of his char- 
acter and his genius, his intelligent patriotism, is exhibited with 
beautiful consistency, first in an artistic, then in an argumenta- 
tive, and finally in an administrative manner. It pervades his 
life, as well as his books, now finding utterance in the fervid 
words of an ancient Tuscan patriot, now in a direct and calm 
appeal to the reason of his contemporaries, and again in the 
salutary projects and unfaltering purpose of the ministerial 
reformer. 

In the history of Sardinia there are obvious facts and tenden- 
cies indicative of a liberal destiny ; vistas, as it were, of light 
athwart the gloom of despotic rule, and low and interrupted yet 
audible breathings of that spirit of liberty and national progress 
now evidently becoming more permanent and vital. The nucleus 
of the monarchy was Savoy, around which were grouped the 
fragments of several states, — the old kingdom of Burgundy. 
and remains of the Carlovingian and Prankish empire ; but 
towards the end of the thirteenth century its individuality was 
fixed by the will of Count Asmodeus the Sixth ; and by the 
peace of Utrecht it became a state of Europe. Although the 
power of the crown was unlimited, the government was admin- 
istered by three ministers, and the succession confined to the 
male line, the assent of the Estates was requisite for the impo- 
sition of new taxes, and, while the nobility formed a large class, 
it was not exempt from taxation. The traveller who visits the 
church of La Superga, at Turin, and muses over her buried 
kings, will recall traits of royal charact^ not unworthy of the 
superb mausoleum. In the forty-three years of his reign, Charles 
Emanuel the Third, both as a civic and military ruler, preserved 



344 THE LITERARY STATESMAN. 

a high character. In his disputes with the Pope, he successfully 
maintained the right of the state to make all ecclesiastical appoint- 
ments ; and the concordat was confirmed by Benedict the Four- 
teenth, in 1742. The new code of 1770 was in advance of the 
times, and the country flourished under its provisions. But these 
incidental advantages were not sufficient to modify the natural 
influence of despotism upon the character of the people ; and the 
acknowledged superiority of the Sardinians in vigor and breadth 
of nature is, perhaps, not less owing to local and social circum- 
stances. Among these we are disposed to reckon the variety of 
elements that constitute the state ; it combines interior plains 
with mountains and sea-coast — the fertile levels of Asti and 
Alessandria, and the distant island of Sardinia ; while Piedmont, 
as its name suggests, lies at the foot of the Pennine Alps (in 
which are the Great Saint Bernard on her north), and of the 
Grecian and Cottian Alps, including Mont Blanc and Mont Cenis, 
towards France and Savoy ; in the direction of the south are the 
Maritime Alps, separating her from Genoa and Nice. 

Another propitious influence that distinguishes Piedmont is 
the existence of a large body of Protestants, whose contests with 
the Catholic power early broke up the monotony of prescriptive 
opinion, and tended to enlighten and invigorate the adjacent peo- 
ple, Milton's noble sonnet to the-Waldenses of Piedmont is a 
familiar memorial of their heroism and sufferings. Protected by 
their mountain barriers, they defeated the army of the Pope, who 
lost not less than seven hundred men in the struggle. The actual 
efiect, however, of so complete a despotism as that which origin- 
ally invested the territory, has been described in a vivid and 
graphic manner by another poet. Alfieri, in his ingenuous auto- 
biography, gives us a melancholy picture of an education under 
royal authority. His fame is one of the redeeming associations 
that beguile the traveller at Turin. 

In 1798, Charles Emanuel the Fourth ceded his whole terri- 
tory to the French, with the exception of the island of Sardinia ; 
and, four years subsequently, abdicated in favor of his brother, 
who, upon his return after the peace of Paris, in 1815, restored 
the old constitution as far as practicable, readmitted the Jesuits, 
subscribed to the Holy Alliance, and established a rigorous cen- 



MASSIMO D'AZEaLIO. 345 

sorship. The next year, harassed by the occupation of his 
kingdom by the Austrians. he also resigned in favor of his 
brother, Charles Felix. The Congress of Vienna, in 1822, pro- 
vided for the evacuation of foreign troops ; but, before three years 
had elapsed, the usual enactments of arbitrary power crushed 
whatever germs of a liberal policy remained. By a royal edict, 
such of the inhabitants as were not possessed of at least four 
hundred dollars were forbidden to acquire the first elements of 
learning ; and only those having a certain investment in the 
funds were allowed to enter the university. Translations of 
Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and other authors, were prohibited. 
From time to time, formidable conspiracies against a government 
so tyrannical were discovered ; the most important, that of 1821, 
was not without temporary success, since the regent, Charles 
Albert, was compelled to swear to the Spanish constitution. The 
spirit of the age and the lessons of experience were not alto- 
gether lost upon this prince, whose real character seems but 
recently to have been appreciated. We can desire no better evi- 
dence of his sincere love of country, and benign projects, than 
the fact that, many yeai^ since, when comparative tranquillity 
prevailed in Europe, he was accustomed to hold long and confi- 
dential interviews with our representative at his court, for the 
purpose of eliciting information as to the means and method of 
gradually ameliorating the institutions not only of Sardinia, but 
of Italy. 

He long cherished the hope of giving her national unity, of 
combining from all her states an efficient army, and thus expell- 
ing the Austrians from the soil. This he believed to be the first 
step towards a constitutional government ; popular education and 
military training he more or less encouraged in his own domin- 
ions, with this great ultimate object in view ; and he certainly 
possessed the most efficient native troops, and the best-founded 
popularity, among the Italian princes. Since his death, impar- 
tial observers concur in deeming him far more unfortunate than 
treacherous ; a reaction has justly taken place in the public esti- 
mation of his motives and career ; and no candid inquirer can 
fail to recognize in him a brave ruler, who gave a decided 



346 THE LITERARY STATESMAN. 

impulse to liberal ideas, advanced the Italian cause, and became 
one of its involuntary martyrs. 

*' Yea, verily, Charles Albert has died well ; 

And if he lived not all so, as one spoke, 
The sin passed softly with the passing bell. 

For he was shriven, I think, in cannon-smoke, 
And, taking off his crown, made visible 

A hero's forehead. Shaking Austria's yoke, 
He shattered his own hand and heart. ' So best.' 

His last words were, upon his lonely bed, 
* I do not end like popes and dukes at least, — 

Thank God for it.' And now that he is dead. 
Admitting it is proved and manifest 

That he was worthy, with a discrowned head. 
To measure heights with patriots, let them stand 

Beside the man in his Oporto shroud. 
And each vouchsafe to take him by the hand. 

And kiss him on the cheek, and say aloud, 
' Thou, too, hast suffered for our native land ! 

My brother, thou art one of us. Be proud ! ' " * 

Into this amphibious country, — as Piedmont is quaintly called 
by the Italian tragic poet, — into this kingdom composed of the 
fragments of shattered dynasties, the scene of religious persecu- 
tion, the heritage of a long line of brave and despotic kings, who 
adorned it with magnificent temples of religion by taxes wrung 
from an ignorant people and extorted from a pampered nobility, 
— into this romantic land, crowned with Alpine summits and 
indented with emerald vales, — a region memorable for many a 
hard-fought field, and which boasts the home of Rousseau, Alfieri, 
and Pellico, — Massimo d'Azeglio was born, on the second of Oc- 
tober, 1798. His family was both ancient and noble ; his native 
city was Turin, a capital so near the confines of France as to be 
more exposed to the influx of Continental ideas than any other 
metropolis of the land. A more vigorous and intelligent race 
tread its streets, and a bolder peasantry dwell amid the moun- 
tains around, than belong to the sickly Campagna or the Lazza- 
roni shores ; the soldier has a manlier bearing, and the priest a 
franker aspect ; while in society, not only the language, but the 
enlightenment, of the French prevails. At the cafis you find 

* Mrs. Browning's " Casa Guidi Windows." 



MASSIMO d'azeglio. 347 

more foreign journals, in the salons a less antediluvian tone ; the 
mellow atmosphere of the past which broods over the more south- 
ern districts is here scarcely perceptible, and a certain modern air 
and freshness of life immediately strike the traveller from that 
direction, as he enters the Sardinian capital. 

Here Azeglio's early education was strictly private ; he then 
passed through the usual college tuition, entered the militia, and 
soon became an army officer. His natural tastes, however, were 
for art and politics. Accordingly, when sent minister to E^ome, 
at a subsequent period, we find him assiduously cultivating the 
fine arts; and in a short time he became a skilful landscape 
painter. Here his latent and instinctive taste and capabilities 
genially unfolded; the impressive ruins, the treasuresof the Vati- 
can, and the companionship of artists, continually informed and 
inspired his mind, which rapidly and gracefully developed in an 
atmosphere so accordant with its original bias. We frequently 
have occasion to remark the affinity between the fine arts and cer- 
tain departments of literature ; and seldom can this relation be 
traced with more charming effect than in the writings of D'Azeg- 
lio. The clearness of design, the felicitous adaptation of the 
atmosphere to the outline, the grouping, scenic descriptions, and 
fidelity to those laws of historical perspective, which are so anal- 
ogous to the same principles in painting, all unfold themselves 
to the critical reader of his masterly narratives. We feel, as we 
read, that the best preparation for that species of literary art is 
the discipline of the accomplished draughtsman ; for an historical 
romance, in its true significance, is like an elaborate picture, sub- 
ject to the same conditions of light and shade, truth to fact and 
nature, and harmonious conception. 

D'Azeglio delineates in language with a patient attention to 
details, a wise regulation of color, and a constant eye to unity of 
effect, which we at once refer to his studies in the Roman Acad- 
emy and galleries, and his familiarity with the pencil and palette. 
It was not, however, until the maturity of his powers that his 
genius found scope in language. Before he had acquired fame as 
a novelist, the intrinsic qualities of the man won him an exalted 
place in the estimation of a circle of friends, including the most 
illustrious names of Lombardy. On his removal to Milan, in 



348 THE LITERARY STATESMAN. 

1830, his urbanity of spirit, fluent expression, manliness, and 
evident intellectual ability, had thus gained him numerous ad- 
mirers ; and Rossi and Manzoni were among his most intimate and 
attached companions. It is an interesting coincidence, that the 
destined successor of the first of Italian novelists became his son- 
in-law. D'Azeglio espoused the daughter of Manzoni; and 
somewhat of the domestic pathos which gives a melancholy charm 
to his principal work is doubtless the reflection of his own sad 
experience, for but a single year of conjugal happiness followed 
his marriage, his bride having died soon after giving birth to a 
daughter. 

The social character of Milan is rather literary than artistic ; 
and it seems a natural inference, that, when the embryo states- 
man and clever landscape painter exchanged the Eternal City for 
the Lombard capital, and found himself in the centre of a distin- 
guished group of patriotic men of letters, the chief of whom was 
bound to him by ties of family as well as sympathy of taste, he 
should catch the spirit of authorship, and seek to embody in that 
form the knowledge acquired in another field, and the aspirations 
that craved more emphatic utterance than could be expressed by 
the silent canvas. In 1833, therefore, appeared " Ettore Fiera- 
mosca, or the Challenge of Barletta," the best Italian historical 
romance since the "Promessi Sposi." Its easy and copious style, 
its truth of description and distinct characterization, the simplicity 
of its plot, and, above all, the thoroughly Italian nature of the 
argument, instantly established its popularity. The incident upon 
which the story is founded is as familiar to the historical reader 
as it is memorable in the annals of Italy ; — that of a drawn bat- 
tle between thirteen Italian and the same number of French 
knights, occasioned by the challenge of the former, for an impu- 
tation cast upon their national bravery by one of the latter. 
Sanctioned as was the encounter by the leaders of both armies, 
witnessed by a large concourse, including citizens and soldiers of 
France, Spain, and Italy, — the ferocious zeal of the combatants, 
the duration of the struggle, the patriotic as well as individual 
sense of honor involved, and, finally, the signal triumph of the 
Italian arms, combine to render the scene one of intense interest. 



MASSIMO DAZEGLIO. 349 

D' Azeglio availed himself of this episode in the early wars of his 
country, to revive that sentiment of national unity which so many 
years of dispersion and tyranny had obscured, but not extin- 
guished, in the Italian heart. From the records of the past he 
thus evoked the spirit so requisite to consecrate the present. Et- 
tore Fieramosca is the ideal of an Italian knight ; his unfortu- 
nate but nobly-cherished love, his prowess, beauty, and fiery 
enthusiasm for his country, his chivalric accomplishments and 
entire self-devotion, beautiful and attractive as they are, become 
more impressive from the strict historical fidelity with which they 
are associated. The games, laws, costume, turns of thought and 
speech, and military and popular habits of the era, are scrupu- 
lously given. Among the characters introduced are Csesar Bor- 
gia and Vittoria Colonna, names that eloquently typify the two 
extremes of Italian character, — the integrity of which, in its 
villany and its virtue, is admirably preserved ; the ecclesiastic, 
the inn-keeper, the man-at-arms, the gossiping citizen, and the 
prince of that day, are portrayed to the life. Many of the local 
scenes described have the clearness of outline and the vividness 
of tint which make them permanent reminiscences to the contem- 
plative reader, and have associated them in the minds of his coun- 
trymen with the hero of D' Azeglio' s romance and the sentiment 
of national honor. 

In 1841 appeared '' Nicolo di Lapi," the work which estab- 
lished D'Azeglio's fame as a literary artist and a man of decided 
genius. The same patriotic instinct guided his pen as in his pre- 
vious enterprise ; but the design was more elaborate and finished, 
and the conception wrought out through more extensive research 
and a higher degree of feeling. The time chosen is that terrible 
epoch when Florence defended herself alone against the arms of 
Clement the Seventh and Charles the Fifth. In his account of 
the siege of 1529-30, he follows Yarchi in regard to the promi- 
nent external facts ; but into the partial and imperfect record of 
the historian he breathed the life of nature and tradition. For 
this purpose, the documents of the age were assiduously collated ; 
the monuments, walls, and towers of Florence interrogated ; the 
bastions of Saint Miniato, the palaces of the Medici and Pazzi, 
the Bargello, the piazza, ancient private dwellings — the courts 
30 



350 THE LTTITRARY STATESMAN. 

and staircases, the portraits and legends — every tradition and 
memorial of the period, examined, to acquire the requisite scenic 
and local material, which are 'wrought up with such authentic 
minuteness as to form a complete picture, and one which the 
observation of every visitor to the Tuscan capital at once and 
entirely recognizes. 

Nor has he bestowed less care upon the spirit and action of 
his romance. The people, as they once existed, in all their orig- 
inal efficiency and individual character, are reproduced, as they 
then lived, thought, suffered, and battled, after three hundred 
years of internal agitation and wars, proving themselves adequate 
to cope at once with both Emperor and Pope, and falling at last 
rather through treachery than conquest. The very atmosphere 
of those times seems to float around us as we read. The repub- 
lic lives in its original vigor. "We realize the events of history 
reanimated by the fire of poetic invention. Niccolo is the ideal 
of an Italian patriot, as Fieramosca is of a knight. There is a 
Lear-like solemnity in his vehement passion and religious self- 
control, a Marino Faliero dignity in his political ruin. The 
consistent earnestness of his character, the wisdom and majesty, 
the fierce indignation and holy resignation, the high counsels and 
serene martyrdom of the venerable patriot, are at once exalted 
and touching. Depressed by existing degeneracy, D' Azeglio seems 
to have evoked this noble example from the past to revive the 
dormant hopes and elevate the national sentiment of his country- 
men. Around this grand central figure he has grouped, with 
rare skill and marvellous effect, a number of historical person- 
ages and domestic characters, whose words, acts, and appearance, 
give distinct reality and dramatic effect to the whole conception. 
It is enough to mention Savonarola, Feruccio, and Malatesta, — 
the reformer, the soldier, and the civic ruler, — all reproduced 
with accuracy, and their agency upon the spirit of the age and 
the course of events suggested with consummate tact. 

From the intensely exciting scenes enacted in the camp, around 
the walls of the besieged city, on the bastions, in the cabinet, and 
at Volterra, we are suddenly transported to the home of Lapi, 
and witness the domestic life of the age. The family portraits 
are exquisitely discriminated ; Lisa and Laodamia are two of 



MASSIMO DAZEGLIO. 351 

those finely contrasted and beautifully conceived female charac- 
ters which, like Scott's Minna and Brenda, leave a Shakspearian 
identity of impression on the reader's mind. Lamberto is a fine 
type of the youth of Tuscany ; Troilo, of Italian duplicity ; and 
Bindo, of a younger son, beloved and brave : while the struggle 
between monastic and martial impulses, so characteristic of the 
epoch, is vividly depicted in Fanfulla. Selvaggia is, also, a rep- 
resentative, both in her wild career and her genuine penitence, of 
a species native to the soil. 

As Ruskin studied the architecture of Venice to fix dates and 
analyze combinations, D'Azeglio appears to have scrutinized the 
art, literature, and monuments, of Florence, to gather the varied 
and legitimate elements which compose this work. He catches 
the voice of faction, and prolongs its echo ; he paints the edifice 
until it stands visibly before the imagination or the memory. He 
reveals the mood of the patriot and the lover, so that we share 
its deep emotion, and leads us, as it were, through the streets of 
the besieged city, to the bedside of the tender maiden and the 
\ngil of the anxious citizen, till the objects and spirit of the age 
and people become, through sympathy and observation, like con- 
scious realities. Among the incidental merits of this work may 
also be reckoned its philosophic insight, exhibited not only in a 
fine study of the laws of character, but in the influence of polit- 
ical opinion upon domestic life, the conflict between patriotic and 
personal sentiment, the local agency of institutions, and the 
mutual relation of military and religious enthusiasm. Nor can 
we fail to perceive, throughout, the singular advantages enjoyed 
by the historical novelist in Italy, finding in her works of art, her 
temples, palaces, and libraries, the most significant, and, at the 
same time, authentic hints and glimpses of the life of the past. 
Many exquisite touches of picturesque or suggestive limning, such 
as mark the patient explorer and the observant artist, occur in 
" Niccolo de Lapi." But if to these characteristics the work 
owes much of its immediate popularity, and not a little of its 
intrinsic interest, the standard literary value attached to it is, in 
no small degree, derived from the style. The language of 
D'Azeglio is terse, flowing, and appropriate. He writes in a 
calm though fervent spirit ; his tone is chastened and intense ; 



352 THE LITERARY STATESMAN. 

and he uses words with a keen sense of their meaning and delicate 
adaptation. He has drawn a picture of the age, not only alive 
with moral sentiment and warmed by patriotic emotion, but so man- 
aged as to excite profound respect as well as earnest sympathy ; 
to blend in harmonious contrast the office of historian and poet. 

Indeed, D'Azeglio's great distinction is a certain moderation, 
judgment, and rational view of the prospects and needs of his 
country, rarely found in unison with so much zeal and genius. He 
early manifested this trait in habits of study and investigation, and 
has since and always been true to himself in this regard as a man 
of action. It is on account of his excellent sense, logical power, 
and reverence for truth, that he has so eminently succeeded both 
as an artist and a statesman. No better proof of his superiority to 
the mass of revolutionists can be desired, than the sentiments and 
arguments of his well-known political essay induced by the occur- 
rences in Romagna in the autumn of 1845. He there states, 
without the least fanaticism or exaggeration, the real state of the 
case, and points out clearly and justly the reforms necessary in the 
Pontifical States. He rebukes all 'premature and ^11-considered 
measures on the part of the oppressed people, as only calculated 
to postpone their enfranchisement and prejudice their cause. He 
wisely advocates gradual enlightenment, and eloquently describes 
the fatal consequences of rash and ignorant movements. 

He gives a plain and authentic statement of facts to show the 
utter impolicy, as well as inhumanity, of secret prosecutions, of 
resort to foreign arms, base espionage, a contraband system, cen- 
sorship, and an inconsistent and unreliable code, and all the other 
flagrant evils of papal sway ; and while thus effectively reproach- 
ing the government, he is equally indignant and impartial in his 
condemnation of reckless agitators and precipitate heroes, who not 
only vainly sacrifice themselves, but bring into fatal disrepute 
more judicious patriots. D'Azeglio comprehends the inevitable 
agency of public sentiment as a means of national redemption. 
He understands the Italian character, and points out the differ- 
ence between animal and civic courage. He thinks fools as 
dangerous as knaves to the cause of freedom ; shows the need of 
political education ; pleads for a due regard to time, opportunity, 
and means, m order to secure permanent advantage ; and declares 



MASSIMO D A Z E G L I . 853 

that the great lesson his cauntrymen have to learn is to ayoid the 
two extremes of reckless despair and inert resignation, to improve, 
to hope, to prepare the way, and thus gain moral vigor, the 
world's respect, and God's favor : and, while he demonstrates the 
injustice of the Papal government, he would not have its victims 
imitate the madman, who, in flying from an insect, ran over a 
precipice. 

He gives instances, on the one hand, of the decadence of the 
towns of Romagna in consequence of misrule, and, on the other, 
of the concessions of despotic governments to the consistent and 
enlightened appeal of their subjects. In his strict justice, he 
even praises Austria for her administration of law, compared with 
the Roman tyranny, that makes the judge and accuser one ; and 
selects from his own state an example of treachery with which to 
contrast the self-devotion of those who fought at Barletta. This 
able pamphlet, entitled, '' Ultimi Casi di Romagna," is one of 
the most candid and thoughtful expositions of actual political evils, 
and the only available means of overcoming them, which a native 
writer has produced. No one can read it without sympathy for 
the oppressed, indignation against the government, and respect 
for the reasoning of D'Azeglio. It is not less intelligible than 
philosophic ; and subsequent events have amply proved the sound- 
ness of its arguments and the correctness of its inferences. 

It in view of the many abortive revolutions, the want of unity, 
the influence of Jesuitism, the interference of France and Austria, 
and all the other antagonistic conditions that environ the intelli- 
gent votaries of Italian independence and nationality, w^e seek a 
clue by which to thread the dark labyrinth of her misfo"rtunes, 
and find a way into the light of freedom and progress, what 
rational plan or ground of hope suggests itself? Only, as it 
seems to us, the practical adoption in some section of the land of 
those political and social reforms which, once realized, will inev- 
itably spread; the successful experiment in a limited sphere, 
which, by the force of example and moral laws, will gradually 
extend. Let the capacity for self-govei-nment, the advantages of 
liberal institutions, be demonstrated in one state, and they cannot 
fail to penetrate the whole nation. A few years since, Rome 
seemed the destined nucleus for such a change, and subsequently 
30* 



354 THE LITERARY STATESMAN. 

Tuscany ; but the bigotry of ecclesiastical power in the one, and 
the grasp of Austrian power in the other, soon led to a fatal 
reaction. The course of events and the facts of to-day now indis- 
putably designate Sardinia as the region whence the light is to 
emanate. Favored, as we have seen, by the character of her 
people, her local position, and the traits of her past history, the 
very disaster that checked her army has tended to concentrate 
and develop the spirit of the age and the elements of constitutional 
liberty within her borders. The loss of the battle of Novara, and 
the abdication of Charles Albert, though apparently great misfor- 
tunes, have resulted in signal benefits. After securing peace from 
their adversaries chiefly by a pecuniary sacrifice, the king and 
citizens of Piedmont turned their energies towards internal reform 
with a wisdom and good faith which are rapidly yielding legiti- 
mate fruit. 

Public schools were instituted, the press made free, the Wal- 
denses allowed to quit their valleys, build churches, and elect 
representatives, the privileges of the clergy abolished, and the 
two bishops who ventured to oppose the authority of the state, 
tried, condemned, and banished, the Pope's interference repudiated, 
the right of suffrage instituted, railroads from Turin to Genoa 
and from Alessandria to Lago Maggiore constructed, the electric 
telegraph introduced, liberal commercial treaties formed, docks 
built, and cheap postal laws enacted. In a word, the great evils 
that have so long weighed down the people of the Italian penin- 
sula — unlimited monarchical power, aristocratic and clerical 
immunities derived from the Middle Ages, the censorship of the 
press, the espionage of the police, and intolerance of all but the 
Catholic religion — in a great measure.no longer exist in Sardinia, 
Regarding the constitution of Charles Albert as a sacred legacy, 
his son and people resolved to uphold and carry out its principles ; 
and they have done so, with scarcely any violence or civil discord. 
Accordingly, an example is now before the Italians, and within 
their observation and sympathy, of a free, progressive, and enlight- 
ened government ; and this one fact is pregnant with hope for the 
entire nation. Only fanatics and shallow adventurers behold the 
signs of promise without grateful emotion. The wise and true 
friends of Italy, at home and abroad, welcome the daily proofs of 



MASSIMO DAZEaLIO. 355 

a new era for that unhappy land aiForded by the prosperity and 
freedom now enjoyed in Piedmont. 

It would be manifestly unjust to ascribe all these propitious 
changes to the personal influence of D'Azeglio; but he deserves 
the credit of projecting and successfully advocating many of the 
most effective ameliorations, and of having been the consistent and 
recognized expositor of the liberal policy of the state. The acces- 
sion of Pius IX. was greeted by him with all the delight the 
hopeful dawn of his career naturally inspired among the Italian 
patriots. He published a letter full of applause and encourage- 
ment, and had a long and satisfactory interview with the new 
Pope ; and when the bitter disappointment ensued, he carried out, 
in his official capacity, the sentiments he professed, and to which 
Pius IX. was shamelessly recreant. Like Henry Martyn, in 
England, he proposed the emancipation of the Jews in Piedmont, 
and his philanthropy is manifested in the establishment of public 
baths and fires for the poor. He took a bold and decided stand 
against the Pope, and originated the treaty with England. In 
his address to the Sardinian parliament, on the 12th of February, 
1852, he expresses the noblest sentiments and principles, in lan- 
guage of simple and earnest vigor ; repudiating what are called 
reasons of state, maintaining that the same morality is applicable 
to governments and individuals, that integrity has taken the 
place of astuteness, that good sense and good faith are all that the 
true statesman requires to guide him, and that the press and 
facility of intercourse which enable Turin, Moscow, and Edin- 
burgh, to feel simultaneously the force of public opinion, have 
emancipated rulers from the narrow resource of subtlety, and 
induced among all enlightened governments reliance on the abso- 
lute power of truth and fidelity. He attributes, in this masterly 
discourse, the peaceful achievement of so much permanent good 
in the state, to the virtue of the people, the prudence of the legis- 
lature, and the loyalty of the king. 

How long Sardinia will be permitted to carry on within her 
own limits the progressive system, that now so happily distin- 
guishes her from the other continental governments, is extremely 
doubtful. The asylum she gives to political refugees, the un- 
pleasant truths her free press announces, and the operation of her 



356 THE LITERARY STATESMAN. 

free-trade principles, occasion the greatest annoyance to Austria, 
and excite the sympathetic desires of less-favored states. She has 
incurred the permanent enmity of the Papal see by suppressing 
the monasteries and sheltering Protestants ; and Count Cavour's 
plea to the allied Congress for the people of Rome and Naples, 
only riveted the bonds of despotic sympathy between their cruel 
and bigoted rulers. It is scarcely to be expected that interference 
of a more active kind than has yet taken place will not be 
attempted. Meantime, however, it is but just to recognize the 
noble example she has set of an enlightened self-government, and 
to award the highest praise to the generous and judicious states- 
man at the head of her policy. It will prove a remarkable coin- 
cidence if the enterprise recently broached in New York, of a line 
of steamers between that city and Genoa, is realized ; thus uniting 
by frequent intercourse the commercial emporium of the New 
World with the birthplace of her discoverer, and opening a direct 
and permanent communication between the greatest republic of 
the earth and the one state of Italy which has proved herself suffi- 
ciently intelligent, moral, and heroic, to reform peacefully an 
oppressive heritage of political and social evils. 

The efficacy of D'Azeglio's patriotic zeal is, as we have endeav- 
ored to show, derived from his knowledge and judgment. Years 
of exile have not caused him to lose sight of the actual exigencies 
of the country. Having lived alternately at Turin, Florence, 
Genoa, Milan, Lucca, and Rome, and visited all parts of the 
peninsula, he is quite familiar with the condition of the people of 
the respective states, the special local evils of each administration, 
and the OiVailable resources of the nation. Thoroughly versed in 
the art, literature, and history of Italy, enjoying the intimacy and 
confidence of her leading spirits, and practically acquainted with 
diplomatic life, his views are not random speculations, but well- 
considered opinions, his aims distinct and progressive, and the 
spirit in which he works that of a philosopher. The beautiful 
emanations of his study and genius have awakened, far and wide, 
the pride and affection of his countrymen. In 1845 he com- 
menced, in the " Antologia Italiana," a new romance, founded 
on the Lombard league, which the cessation of that journal and 
the claims of official life have obliged him to suspend. In 1848 



MASSIMO d'azeglio. 357 

he fought in Lombardj; and early in the succeeding year an 
unostentatious but select and cordial banquet was given him in 
Rome by his admirers and friends, to congratulate one another 
on the new hopes of Italian regeneration Avhich events then jus- 
tified. Of late he has retired from the cares of office and the 
pursuit of literature, to devote himself, with eminent success, to 
his original vocation — historical painting. 

Through all the chances and changes of the times, the noble 
author, and statesman, and artist, has serenely maintained his 
faith and wisely dedicated his mind to his country, emphatically 
giving utterance to truth and reason, both to fanatical patriots 
and despotic rulers : to the one demonstrating the inutility of 
spasmodic efforts, of guerillas, of inadequate resistance and inop- 
portune action ; and to the other calmly proving the absolute 
folly, as well as wickedness, of a total disregard of the spirit of 
the age and the claims of humanity. The present condition and 
prospects of his native state justify his arguments and realize his 
dearest hopes ; and it is her peculiar glory to have had at the 
head of her administration not o.^ily a liberal and wise statesman, 
but one of the most gifted and patriotic of her own sons. 



THE GENIAL CHURCHMAN 

SYDNEY SMITH. 



The memoirs and correspondence of a man who, for twenty 
years, was prominent in London society, and pointed out to 
strangers as eminently noteworthy, must give a desirable insight 
not only into his personal gifts and character, but into the ten- 
dencies and the traits of the circle in which he held so conspicu- 
ous a place. In both regards the volumes edited by his daughter 
justify the anticipation they excite. Here we see portrayed, 
without exaggeration, the best side of the Churchman, — one of 
the highest places open to clerical ambition in England, — its lus- 
tre enhanced by intelligence, its exclusiveness redeemed by geni- 
ality, and its validity vindicated by uprightness and public spirit. 
We recognize the influence and the happiness that may be attained 
by a kindly, conscientious, fearless, candid dignitary of the Estab- 
lishment, whose nature is leavened by a rich and persuasive 
humor, whereby his office, conversation, letters, and presence, are 
lifted from technicality and routine into vital relations with his 
fellow-beings and the time. Pleasant and suggestive is the rec- 
ord, full of amenity, and bright, cheerful traits. It is refreshing 
to meet with so much life, so much liberality, so much humane 
sentiment, where the conventional and the obsolete so often over- 
lay and formalize mind and manner. Yet there is a distinct limit 
to this satisfaction. The vantage-ground which ecclesiastical 
prestige gave to Sydney Smith, his talents and agreeability 
confirmed j but his sympathies, with all their free play, had a 



SYDNEY SMITH. 359 

conservative rebound. Those who would derive a complete idea 
of the modern English development from these memorials, err. 
He moved in a circle of the most active, but not of the highest 
intellectual range. We should never discover from this chronicle 
that Coleridge also talked, Carljle reasoned, Lamb jested, Hazlitt 
criticized, and Shelley and Keats sang, in those days. Within 
the sensible zone of English life, as that term is usually under- 
stood, Sydney lived. He often ignored what was boldly original 
and radically independent. His scope was ever within the Whig 
ranks in politics and the Established Church pale in religion. 
What could be beheld and experienced therein, we see, but much 
that excites admiration without, is unrevealed. The iron horizon 
of caste is the framework of this attractive picture. The charm 
it offers is the manliness which a true soul, thus environed, ex- 
hibits. To us transatlantic lovers of his rare humor, it is the man 
rather than the priest, the companion rather than the prodigy, 
that wins attention. 

We have seen, again and again, genius utterly perverted by 
self-love, usefulness marred by fanaticism, wit poisoned by malev- 
olence, health shattered, existence abridged, vanity pampered, 
confidence destroyed, by the erratic, unprincipled, weak use of 
intellectual gifts. This tragic result is the staple of literary 
biography, so that prudent souls have blessed the fate which con- 
signed them to harmless mediocrity. The rare and sweet excep- 
tions to so general a rule are therefore full of satisfaction and 
redolent of hope. In the case of Sydney Smith we witness the 
delightful spectacle of a mind that bravely regulates the life 
which it cheers and adorns. Humor was the efflorescence of his 
intellect, the play that gave him strength for labor, the cordial 
held by a kindly hand to every brother's lips, the sunshine of 
home, the flavor of human intercourse, the music to which he 
marched in duty's rugged path. By virtue of this magic quality, 
he redeemed the daily meal from heaviness, the needful journey 
from fatigue, narrow circumstances from depression, and prosper- 
ity from materialism. He illustrated simultaneously the power 
of content and the beauty of holiness. Did Portland stone, in- 
stead of marble, frame his hearth ? Innocent mirth and a clear 
blaze made those around it oblivious of the defect. Must a paper 



360 THE GENIAL CHURCHMAN. 

border take the place of a cornice ? Laughing echoes hung the 
room with more than arabesque ornament. Were the walls des- 
titute of precious limning? He knew how to glorify them with 
sunshine. Did he lack costlj furniture? Children and roses 
atoned for the want. Was he compelled to entertain his guest with 
rustic fare ? He found compensation in the materials thus fur- 
nished for a comic sketch. Did the canine race interfere with his 
comfort ? He banished them by a mock report of law damages. 
Was his steed ugly, slow, and prone to throw his rider ? He 
named him "Calamity" or "Peter the Cruel," and drew a farce 
from their joint mishaps. Was his coach lumbering and ancient ? 
Its repairs were forever suggestive of quaint fancies. AYas a herd 
of deer beyond his means ? He fastened antlers on donkeys, and 
drew tears of laughter from aristocratic eyes. Did the evergreens 
look dim at Christmas ? He tied oranges on their boughs and 
dreamed of tropical landscapes. Was a lady too fine ? He dis- 
covered a " porcelain understanding." Was a friend too voluble? 
He enjoyed his "flashes of silence." Were oil and spermaceti 
beyond his means ? He illuminated the house with mutton lamps 
of his own invention. A fat woman, a hot day, a radical, a heavy 
sermonizer, a dandy, a stupid Yorkshire peasant, — people and 
things that in others would only excite annoyance, — he turned 
instinctively to the account of wit. His household at Foston is a 
picture worthy of Dickens. Bunch, Annie Kay, Molly Miles, — 
heraldry, old pictures, and china, — in his atmosphere became 
original characters and bits of Flemish still-life, which might set 
up a novelist. He turned a bay-window into a hive of bright 
thoughts, and a random walk into a chapter of philosophy. To 
domestic animals, humble parishioners, rustic employes^ to the 
oppressed, the erring, the sick, the market-woman, and the 
poacher, he extended as ready and intelligent a sympathy as to 
the nobleman and the scholar. He was more thankful for animal 
spirits and good companionship than for reputation and prefer- 
ment. He reverenced material laws not less than the triumphs 
of intellect ; esteemed Poor Richard's maxims as well as Macau- 
lay's rhetoric ; thought self-reproach the greatest evil, and occu- 
pation the chief moral necessity of existence. He believed in 
talking nonsense, while he exercised the most vigorous powers 



SYDNEYSMITH. 361 

of reasoning. He gave no quarter to cant, and, at the same 
time, bought a parrot to keep his servants in good humor. If 
warned hj "excellent and feeble people" against an individual, 
he sought his acquaintance. His casual bon-mots wreathed the 
town with smiles, and his faithful circumspection irritated the offi- 
cials at St. Paul's. He wielded a battle-axe in the phalanx 
of reform, and scattered flowers around his family altar. He 
wakened the sinner's heart to penitence, and irradiated prandial 
monotony ; educated children, and shared the counsels of states- 
men; turned from literary correspondence to dry an infant's 
tears, and cheered a pauper's death-bed with as true a heart as he 
graced a peer's drawing-room. It is the human, catholic range 
and variety of such a nature and such a life, that raises Sydney 
Smith from the renown of a clever author and a brilliant wit to 
the nobler fame of a Christian man. 

In his biography we have another signal instance of the effect 
of blood in determining character. The Gallic element perme- 
ated Sydney's Anglo-Saxon nature ; and in him it was the vivac- 
ity of Languedoc that quickened the solemn banquets of the 
Thames. By instinct, no less than from principle, he encouraged 
cheerfulness. He thoroughly appreciated the relation of mind 
and body, and sought, by exercise, gay talk, and beneficent inter- 
course, while he avoided self-reproach and systematized business, 
to lessen the cares and to multiply the pleasures of daily life. The 
minor felicities were in his view as much a part of human nature 
as the power of reasoning and the capacity of usefulness. In his 
endeavor to make the most of life as a means of enjoyment, he 
was thoroughly French ; in loyalty to its stern requirements and 
high objects, he was no less completely English. In practical 
wisdom he resembled Dr. Franklin ; in the genuine benignity of 
his spirit, Bishop Berkeley ; and in the power of colloquial adapt- 
ation, Burke. He sublimated Poor Richard's prudence by tact 
and wit; and called himself an "amalgam," from the facility with 
which his genial tone fused the discordant or reserved social ele- 
ments around him. "Some sulk," he observes, "in a stage; I 
always talk." He was no abstract scholar or isolated sage, but 
read and wrote in the midst of his family, undisturbed by chil- 
dren, servants, or visitors. His idea of life and duty was emi- 
31 



362 THE GENIAL CHURCHMAN. 

nently social ; and in this also we recognize the influence of his 
French descent. The names of friends, acquaintances, and corre- 
spondents, in these volumes, include a remarkable varietj of illus- 
trious characters : first, the famous Edinburgh coterie — Play- 
fair, Stewart, Brougham, Scott, Alison, Jeffrey, Horner, and 
their associates ; then the authors and statesmen he knew so inti- 
mately in London, such as Lord Holland, Lord Grey, Mackin- 
tosh, Rogers, and Moore ; then his Continental friends, Madame 
de Stael, Pozzo di Borgo, Talleyrand, the King of Belgium, and 
many more ; besides the domestic and clerical associates incident 
to his position and family connections. Imagine a good, cheerful, 
wise, and endeared man, for thirty years, mingling in such 
spheres, dispensing words of cheer and humor, yet always in ear- 
nest as a divine, and always faithful as a reformer, and you have 
a picture of intellectual usefulness and enjoyment, of a healthy, 
active mind, which suggests a living worth but inadequately 
described in these volumes. Scotchmen and Quakers have been 
staple themes with the English wits for a century ; Dr. Johnson 
and Charles Lamb were memorably comical about them ; and 
Sydney Smith continued the merry warfare with credit. In each 
of the coteries represented by these idols of society, we find that 
the " mutual admiration" principle, so natural to special frater- 
nities, holds sway. Johnson over-estimated, while he browbeat, 
his literary confreres; Lamb betrays a childlike devotion to 
Coleridge and his disciples ; and Sydney Smith praises Jeffrey's 
articles, Horner's character, and Mackintosh's talk, with like par- 
tiality. This is but the instinct of the love and honor drawn out 
by intimate association ; but such verdicts, in a critical point of 
view, are to be taken with due allowance, — not so much in 
regard to the merits of the individuals thus warmly regarded, as 
of contemporaries not belonging to the same clique, yet, in an 
intellectual aspect, having equal and often superior claims upon' 
the lover of genius and worth. 

As a representative man, Sydney Smith was more endeared 
for his liberal, frank, and mirthful nature, than for its refine- 
ments. He lacked that profound sense of beauty, and that 
patient love of art, which constitute poetical feeling. He felt no 
interest in Wordsworth, thought Madame de Sevigne's letters 



SYDNEY SMITH. 

beneath their reputation, and declared himself satisfied with ten 
minutes of Talma's acting, and fifteen of observation at the 
Louvre. Hi^ passion for roses seems to have been rather a keen 
sense of their vital freshness, than a delicate perception of their 
beauty. Thej were precious in his sight chiefly as emblems of 
the spontaneous grace of nature. He delighted in ti-ansitions 
both of scene and of employment. He read with great rapidity, 
skimming, with hasty glances, the cream of literature. He had 
the ingenuous want of artificial elegance so often noticed as char- 
acteristic of manly genius. " Sydney,"' said one of his friends, 
"your sense, wit, and clumsiness, always give me the idea of an 
Athenian carter." 

The combination "most devoutly to be wished" is an "alert 
mind and an easy temperament ; but the two are seldom found 
together. Quickness of conception and aptness of fancy are 
often embodied in a mercui'ial frame ; and the nervous and san- 
guine quality of the body is a constant strain upon vital force, 
and tends to produce the irritability of a morbid or the grave 
errors of an animal enthusiasm. Hence the most famous wits 
have seldom proved equally satisfactory as intimate companions 
and judicious allies in a serious enterprise. Imprudence, impulse, 
and extreme sensitiveness, thus united to uncommon gifts of mind, 
are liable to make the latter more of a bane than a blessing: 
while the same endowments, blended with a happy organization, 
are the prolific source of active usefulness and rational delight. 
Seldom have these results been more perfectly exhibited than in 
Sydney Smith — a pioneer of national reforms without acrimony 
or fanaticism ; prompt to "set the table in a roar," yet never 
losing self-respect, or neglecting the essential duties of life ; 
capable of the keenest satire, yet instinctively considerate of the 
feelings of others ; familiar with the extremes of fortune, yet 
unhardened by poverty and unspoiled by success ; the choicest of 
boon companions, yet the most impressive of clergymen: the 
admired guest, and the recipient of permanent and elegant hos- 
pitality, yet contented in domestic retirement ; born to grace 
society, and, at the same time, the idol of home ; feasted and 
honored in the highest degree, yet true to his own axiom, that thD 
secret of felicity is to "make the day happy to, at least, one 



364 THE GENIAL CHURCHMAN. 

fellow-creature;" with a deep-seated "disgust at hypocrisy.*' 
while recognized as the bravest advocate of Christian charity in 
the church ; impatient to the last degree of the irksome and 
commonplace, yet unwearied in his endeavor to assimilate the 
discordant and to enliven the dull. In him, the soul and the 
body, the family and the fete, labor and pastime, criticism and 
hilarity, wit and wisdom, virtue and intelligence, priesthood and 
manhood, the pen and the life, the friend and the disputant, the 
mysteries of faith and the actualities of experience, " worked 
together for good." 

Though comprehensive and facile as an intellectual man, he 
had the insular stamp, — the honest alloy of British prejudice, — 
frankly confessing that he thought no organized form of Chris- 
tianity worthy to be compared with the Establishment, no beauty 
or genius equal to that which the best London circle includes, no 
physical comfort like a good fire, no restorative like a walk, and 
no talkers superior to Mackintosh, Macaulay, and the rest of his 
own coterie. His praise of good edibles and well-written books, 
his thorough honesty, his manly self-assertion, his want of sym- 
pathy with foreign associations, his keen appreciation of dinner, 
tea, argument, and home, mark the genuine Angloman. Yet he 
had a clearer sense than most of his countrymen of native pecu- 
liarities. "Have you observed," he asks, "that nothing can be 
done in England without a dinner ? " And elsewhere he observes, 
'• Mr. John Bull disdains to talk, as that respected individual has 
nothing to say." With the courage of his race he "'passed his 
life in minorities," and, on principle, fought off the spleen. 
" Never give way to melancholy," he writes to a friend ; " resist 
it steadily,, for the habit will encroach." 

His love of knowledge was strong and habitual ; and he sought 
it, with avidity, in social intercourse, observation, and books, 
reproducing what he gleaned with ease and acuteness. His style 
partakes. of the directness of his whole nature ; he goes at once 
to his subject, whether the exposition of religious truth, a defini- 
tion in moral philosophy, a business epistle, or "a word spoken 
in season." Without circumlocution, and with the prompt brev- 
ity of a man of action, the thing to be expressed is given out, 
interrupted only by some merry jest or humorous turn of 



SYDNEY SMITH. 865 

thought — never by an elaborate or discursive episode. His let- 
ters are singularly brief and to the point ; they indicate character 
by their kindly spirit and quaint vein, frank opinions, and excel- 
lent sense, but are valuable rather as glimpses of his manner of 
living and thinking, of his associations and objects, than as a 
complete illustration of the man. There is a marked individu- 
ality in the most casual note. He does not write with the 
rhetorical finish of Macaulay, the quaint introversions of Car- 
lyle, the voluble knowledge of De Quincey, the smart- ebul- 
litions of JeJBfrey, or the classic elegance of Landor ; but he 
writes like an honest, sensible, prosperous, afiectionate, witty 
Englishman, whose views, tastes, and principles, are fixed, and 
who desires, without waste of time or words, to meet every duty 
and every pleasure in an intelligent, self-sustained, and generous 
mood. The clerical and literary, the political and culinary, the 
friendly and professional interests of his life, come out in singular 
juxtaposition through his correspondence. Now it is a state 
question, and now the receipt for dressing a salad ; one day, to 
acknowledge a present of game, and another, to criticize a new 
number of the Edinburgh : this letter describes a dinner-party, 
and that a plan for church organization ; one proposes an article, 
and another chronicles a tour ; the whole conv^eying a vivid idea 
of a most busy, social, amicable, cheerful existence. After dwell- 
ing on the entire picture, we can readily believe, with his little 
daughter, that "a family does n't prosper without a papa who 
makes all gay by his own mirth ; " and that a dinner without him 
appeared to his bereaved wife unutterably solemn. He declares 
that a play never amused him ; neither would it half the world, 
if there were more Sydneys in social life, to make every day's 
talk " as good as a play." He speaks of the "invincible candor 
of his nature," and this trait is the crystal medium through 
which we so thoroughly recognize him. 

Notwithstanding the deserved rebuke he administered to our 
national delinquency in his American letters, he vindicates his 
claim to the title of Philo-Yankeeist. No British writer has bet- 
ter appreciated the institutions and destiny of the United States. 
He recognized cordially the latent force of Webster, the noble 
eloquence of Channing, and the refined scholarship of Everett. 
31* 



366 THE GENIAL CirURCHMAN. 

"I will disinherit you," he playfully writes to a fair corres- 
pondent, ''if you do not admire everything written by Franklin." 

Perhaps the choicest lesson of his life is his practical cheerful- 
ness. He was no willing polemic, but delighted in "peaceable 
bigotry." One is constantly lured, by this memoir, to speculate 
on the relation of humor to sensibility and- caution ; for its sub- 
ject was as prudent and methodical in affairs as he was vagrant 
and lawless in fancy, and as keenly alive to sympathy and care 
for others as to comfort, society, and fun. "I have," he says, 
"a propensity to amuse myself with trifles." "The wretched- 
ness of human life is only to be encountered on the basis of beef 
and wine." And, elsewhere, ".If, with a pleasant wife, three 
children, a good house and farm, many books, and many friends 
who wish me well, I cannot be happy, I am a very silly, foolish 
fellow, and what becomes of me is of very little consequence." 
This disposition was not merely a background in the landscape ; 
it made him a light-hearted, though none the less earnest worker. 
The sermon inculcating the deepest truth, the essay demolishing 
a time-hallowed error, the plea for some victim of oppression or 
indigence, the letter designed to counsel or cheer, the speech in 
behalf of civil reform, in fine, the entire intellectual activity 
of the man, was unalloyed by discontent and bitterness. He 
could wrestle with wrong, and smile; he could attack without 
losing his temper ; he could sow the pregnant seeds of meliora- 
tion, and, at the same time, scatter flowers of wit along the 
rugged furrows. Swift fought as bravely, but he lacked the 
bonhommie of Sydney to make the battle gay and chivalrous. 
Sterne diverted, with like ease, a festal board ; but he wanted 
the consistent manhood of Peter Plymley to preserve the dignity 
of his office in the midst of pastime. 

Literature has gradually merged the courageous in the artistic 
element. Style, instead of being the vehicle of moral warfare 
and practical truth, has degenerated into an ingenious means of 
aimless effect. To elaborate a borrowed or flimsy idea, to exag- 
gerate a limited and unimportant experience, and to minister 
exclusively to the sense of amusement, have become the primal 
objects of popular writers. They have, in numerous instances, 
ignored the relation of thought to action, of integrity to expres- 



SYDNEY SMITH. 367 

sion, and of truth to eloquence. They have dreamed, dallied, 
coquetted on paper exactly as the butterflies of life do in society, 
giving no impression of individuality or earnestness. To divert 
a vacant hour, to beguile, flatter, puzzle, and relieve the ennui 
of thoughtless minds, appears the height of their ambition. The 
conventional, the lighter graces, the egotistic inanities of self- 
love, so predominate, that we gain no fresh impulse, receive no 
mental stimuli^ behold no veil of error rent, and no vista of 
truth opened as we read. The man of letters is often, to our con- 
sciousness, not a prophet, an oracle, a hero, but a juggler, a pet, 
or, at best, a graceful toy. "We realize the old prejudice, that to 
write for the public amusement is a vocation based on unmanly 
pliancy — a mercenary pursuit which inevitably conflicts with 
self-respect, deals in gossip, and trenches on the dignity of social 
refinement. Personal contact not seldom destroys whatever illu- 
sion taste may have created. We find an evasive habit of mind, 
an effeminate care of reputation, a fear of self-compromise, a 
dearth of original, frank, genial 'utterance. Our ideal author 
proves a mere dilettante, says pretty things as if committed to 
memory for the occasion, picks ingenious flaws to indicate supe- 
rior discernment, interlards his talk with quotations, is all things 
to all men, and especially to all women, makes himself generally 
agreeable by a system of artificial conformity, and leaves us un- 
refreshed by a single glimpse of character or one heartfelt utter- 
ance. We strive to recognize the thinker and the poet, but 
discover only the man of taste, the man of the world, the fop, or 
the epicure ; and we gladly turn from him to a fact of nature, to 
a noble tree, or a sunset cloud, to the genuine in humanity, — a 
fair child, an honest mechanic, true-hearted woman, or old 
soldier, — because in such there is not promise without perform- 
ance, the sign without the thing, the name without the soul. 

It is from the salient contrast with these familiar phases of 
authorship that the very idea of such a man as Sydney Smith 
redeems the calling. In him, first of all and beyond all, is 
manhood, which no skill in pen-craft, no blandishment of fame or 
love of pleasure, was suffered to overlay for a moment. To be a 
man in courage, generosity, stern faith to every domestic and pro- 
fessional claim, in the fear of God and the love of his kmd, in 



368 THE GENIAL CHURCHMAN. 

loyalty to personal conviction, bold speech, candid life, and good 
fellowship, — this was the vital necessity, the normal condition, of 
his nature. Thus consecrated, he found life a noble task and a 
happy experience, and would have found it so without any Edin- 
burgh Review, Cathedral of St. Paul's, or dinners at Holland 
House ; although, when the scope and felicities they bought to 
him came, — legitimate results of his endowments and needs, — 
they were, in his faithful hands and wise appreciation, the 
authentic means of increased usefulness, honor, and delif^ht, 
and chiefly so because he was so disciplined and enriched, by 
circumstances and by natural gifts, as to be virtually independ- 
ent, self-sustained, and capable of deriving mental luxury, 
philosophic content, and religious sanction, from whatever lot 
and duty had fallen to his share. Herein lie the significance of 
his example and the value of his principles. Like pious and 
brave old Herbert, he found a kingdom in his mind which he 
knew how to rule and to enjoy ; and this priceless boon was his 
triumph and comfort in the lowliest struggles and in the highest 
prosperity. It irradiated the damp walls of his first parsonage 
with the glow of wit ; nerved his heart, as a poor vicar, to plead 
the cause of reform against the banded conservatives of a realm ; 
hinted a thousand expedients to beguile isolation and indigence 
of their gloom ;- invested his presence and speech with self-pos- 
session and authority in the peasant's hut and at the bishop's 
table ; made him an architect, a physician, a judge, a school- 
master, a critic, a reformer, the choicest man of society, the most 
efficient of domestic economists, the best of correspondents, the 
most practical of political writers, the most impressive of preach- 
ers, the most genial of companions, a good farmer, a patient 
nurse, and an admirable husband, father, and friend. The integ- 
rity, good sense, and moral energy, which gave birth to this 
versatile exercise of his faculties, constitute the broad and solid 
foundation of Sydney Smith's character ; they were the essential 
traits of the man, the base to that noble column of which wit 
formed the capital and wisdom the shaft. In the temple of 
humanity what support it yielded during his life, and how well- 
proportioned and complete it now stands to the eye of memory, an 
unbroken and sky-pointing cenotaph on his honored grave ! 



THE SUPEPvNATUHALIST 

CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 



The memoirs of distinguished men suggest to the philosopher 
the idea of a natural history of the human mind ; so like the 
laws of instinct is the process of development in each species of 
character. The influence of climate, education, and political and 
social institutions, do not apparently modify the essential identity 
of genius. There is always a certain similarity in its experience, 
and a moral verisimilitude in its life ; and the imprisoned poet of 
Ferrara, the domesticated bard of Olney, and the solitary culti- 
vator of imaginative literature in America, as they are revealed 
to us in their familiar letters, and the anecdotes preserved of their 
habits and feelings, are distinguished by the same general char- 
acteristics. Thus, with each, life began in vague but ardent 
dreams, intensity of personal consciousness, and indications of 
ability which induced those in authority to assign them the law 
5s a career ; in each case, their gentle and earnest spirits re- 
volted from its technical drudgery and tergiversation. They 
alike were beset by Giant Despair in the form of bitter self-dis- 
trust and profound melancholy ; and equally owed their temporary 
emancipation to mental activity and the indulgence of the affec- 
tions. Love and fame contended for the empire of their hearts, 
and finally achieved a kind of mutual victory, and established a 
holy truce. Their difference in renown is indeed great, but aspira- 
tion, insight, and the love of beauty, dwelt in each of their souls, 
and found unequal but powerful expression. The contest with 



370 THE SUPERNATURALIST. 

fortune, the unswerving assertion of individuality of purpose, the 
life of the mind and the loyalty of the heart, distinguish these 
widely-severed beings, as they do the nobility of nature in all 
times and places. 

It is an affecting reminiscence to look back half a century 
upon the enthusiastic American litterateur, delving at his self- 
imposed tasks alone, in the midst of a community absorbed in the 
pursuit of material well-being ; thrOAving off his books with 
scarcely a breath of popularity to cheer his labor, and finding in 
the vocation for which his mind was adapted a satisfaction that 
required not the spur of laudation to prompt habits of industry. 
We perceive in his writings germs, which, under more cherishing 
influences, would have expanded into glorious fruits, scintillations 
of an eclipsed dawn, breathings of a premature spring, the pledge 
and the promise, as well as the partial realization, of original intel- 
lectual achievement. 

Charles Brockden Brown was the first American who manifested 
a decided literary genius in a form which has survived with any- 
thing like vital interest. His native fondness and capacity for 
literature is not only shown by his voluntary adoption of its pur- 
suit at a time and in a country offering no inducement to such a 
career, but they are still more evident from the unpropitious social 
circumstances and local influences amid which he was born and 
bred. He was the son of a member of the Society of Friends in 
Philadelphia — a class distinguished, indeed, for moral worth, but 
equally remarkable for the absence of a sense of the beautiful, 
and a repudiation of the graces of life and the inspiration of sen- 
timent, except that of a strictly religious kind. 

It is obvious that Brockden Brown could have found little thaf 
was favorable to literary aspirations in his early years. Calm, 
prescriptive, and monotonous, was the environment of his infancy, 
except that it richly yielded the gentle and sweet ministries of 
domestic ties and youthful companionship. Sustained by these, 
he seems to have fallen back upon his individuality with the 
singleness of purpose characteristic of genius. He was a devoted 
student ; and mental application soon made inroads upon his 
delicate constitution. By the counsel of his teacher, he acquired 
the habit of making long pedestrian excursions ; and in alter- 



CHARLES BROCKDEX BROWN. 371 

nating between books and walks bis joutb was passed. His ram- 
blings, bowever, were usually without a companion ; and thus, in 
the solitude of nature, he was led to commune deeply with his 
own heart, indulge in fanciful reveries, and accustom himself to 
watch the action of the outward world upon his consciousness. 
He also became, from the same causes, abstracted in his habits of 
mind ; and when the exigencies of practical life roused him from 
tasteful studies and romantic dreams to grapple with the perplex- 
ities and arid details of the law, he recoiled from the profession 
with the ardent feelings of a youth accustomed only to the agree- 
able fields of literature. He, however, persevered, and found con- 
solation in the rhetorical exercises of a debating club, and those 
branches of the study, commenced at sixteen, that gave scope to his 
ingenuity and philosophical taste. To the disappointment of his 
friends, however, when admitted to the bar, he abandoned the idea 
of practice in disgust. Conscious, perhaps, of inconsistency and 
waywardness, yet tenacious of his obligation to follow the instinc- 
tive direction of his mind, the inactivity and hopeless prospect 
incident to such an entire change in his plan of life occasioned, 
for a while, the most painful depression of spirits. 

Both his talents and sensibilities demanded a sphere, and their 
unemployed energy preyed upon his health and conscience. He 
sought relief in change of scene, and visited many parts of his 
own and the neighboring states. Under a calm exterior and an 
apparent indifference of mood, he at this time suffered the most 
acute and despairing chagrin. His kindred and companions dis- 
approved of his course, and vainly remonstrated with him ; and 
thus he not only failed to please those he loved, but was thor- 
oughly dissatisfied with himself In 1793 he visited New York, 
in order to unite with two fellow-students, between whom and 
himself there existed a strong attachment. With them he formed 
a pleasant home : and soon joined the Friendly Club, of which 
Dunlap, Dr. Mitchell, Bleecker, Kent, and other choice spirits of 
the metropolis, were active members. In their society his lite- 
rary tastes revived, and his mental energies expanded. Sympa- 
thy quickened his confidence in his own resources, and he 
regained his cheerfulness and activity of spirit. 

"Wieland" was published in 1798. It was the first work in 



372 ' THE SUPER NATURALIST. 

the department of imaginative literature of native origin, possess- 
ing indisputable tokens of genius, which appeared in the United 
States. Its author died on the twenty-second of February. 1810, 
having just completed his thirty-ninth year. His subsequent 
fictions were unequal both to each other and to the first ; but all 
contain traits of reflective power and invention that enlist the sym- 
pathies of the intellectual reader. They constitute, however, but 
a modicum of his literary labor. When he commenced authorship 
the discussions incident to the French Revolution were rife ; and 
his active mind soon became excited on the subject of politics and 
social philosophy. His first published work — if we except occa- 
sional contributions to periodicals — was a Dialogue on the Rights 
of Woman, said to have been unsuccessful, thouorh inorenious : then 
followed the Memoirs of Carw^in — the basis of his fictitious compo- 
sitions and fame in that branch ; but in the mean time, throughout 
his brief career, he was incessantly engaged in some kind of literary 
toil ; editing the old American Monthly, the first American Re- 
view, the original Literary Magazine, and the American Register : 
compiling an elaborate geography ; preparing architectural draw- 
ings ; investigating various subjects ; corresponding, translating 
Yolney's work on the United States, and writing a series of polit- 
ical pamphlets. Although many of the questions thus treated 
have lost their significance and interest, the knowledge, logic, 
good sense, and general ability, manifest in the political writings 
of Brock den Brown, are thought by some, not incompetent judges, 
to be as remarkable, in view of the period and circumstances, as 
his novels. It is certain that the two exhibit a rare combination of 
practical and imaginative capacity : and evince a mind disciplined 
and prolific as well as versatile. He could reason comprehen- 
sively and acutely on affairs as well as on emotion : and discuss 
the interests of commerce and government with as clear and full 
intelligence as the mysteries of love, remorse, and superstition. 
But it requires the consummate literary art of a Burke and a 
Godwin to preserve the carelessly-strewn jewels of such a mind 
in enduring caskets. 

So deficient, indeed, in constructive design and unity of pur- 
pose, are his writings, that, with the exception of his essays and 
other argumentative papers, they resemble the sketches that litter 



CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 373 

an artist's studio more than elaborate and finished works. His 
fictions might aptly be designated as studies in Romance. He 
left many fragmentary narratives, scenes and dialogues — some 
founded upon history, some upon observation, and others appar- 
ently the result of an inventive mood. At one time he had no 
less than five novels commenced, sketched out, or partially writ- 
ten. Architecture, geography, politics, and belles lettres, by 
turns, occupied his attention. 

There is often in his letters a curious detail ; and he possessed 
the art of making the recital of trifles interesting ; while the logi- 
cian and grave practical thinker, as well as the sincere and ardent 
patriot, are revealed by his spirited treatment of public questions. 
"Wieland" w^as the most powerful story that had appeared in 
the country ; and the American Register, projected and com- 
menced by Brown, was the most useful and appropriate literary 
undertaking of its day. Like most gifted men, he won and re- 
tained affections with ease ; he was the idol of the domestic circle, 
and loyal as well as magnanimous in friendship ; he stood man- 
fully by his comrades during the fearful ravages of the yellow 
fever ; and his letters, while they aim to elicit the inmost expe- 
rience and outward fortunes of those he loves, are remarkably 
self-forgetful. He lived wholly in his mind and affections : from 
a child devoted to books and maps, and, as a man, congratulating 
himself upon that fragility of body that destined him to medita- 
tive pursuits. Reading, clubs, pedestrianism, journalizing, and 
earnest reflection, were the means of his culture and development. 
Like the author of the " Seasons," he was silent in mixed compa- 
nies, but alert and expressive under genial mental excitement. 
An Utopian, he indulged in the most sanguine visions of the 
amelioration of society ; a deep reasoner, he argued a question of 
law or government with subtlety and force ; a devotee of truth, 
he ardently sought and carefully recorded facts ; a wild dreamer, 
he gave the utmost scope to his fancy and the most intense exer- 
cise to his imagination ; careless as to his appearance, unmethodi- 
cal in aSliirs, intent upon the contemplative rather than the 
observant use of his faculties, he yet could summon all his pow- 
ers at the call of love, duty, or taste, and bring them into 
efficient action. He describes his sensations at the first sight of 
32 



374 THE SUPERNATURALIST. 

the sea with the enthusiasm of Alfieri, and sums up an imaginary 
case, as president of a law society, with the grave reasoning of a 
Blackstone. The remarkable feature in his intellectual chai- 
acter was this union of analytical with imaginative power. So 
contented was he when his literary and domestic tastes were 
entirely gratified, as was the case during the last few years of his 
life, that he writes to one of his friends that the only thing which 
mars his felicity is the idea of its possible interruption. He fell 
into a gradual decline; and his wife declares that "he surren- 
dered up not one faculty of his soul but with his last breath." 

A prolific English novelist expressed his surprise at the discov- 
ery of what he called a tendency to supernaturalism in our people, 
having always regarded the American character as exclusively 
practical and matter-of-fact. It seems, however, that both indi- 
viduals and communities are apt to develop in extremes ; and that 
there is some occult affinity between the achieving faculty and the 
sense of wonder. Shakspeare has inwrought his grand supersti- 
tious creation amid vital energies of purpose and action, and thus 
brought into striking contrast the practical efficiency and spiritual 
dependence of our nature. The coincidence is equally remarka- 
ble, w^hether it be considered as artistic ingenuity or natural fact : 
and probably, as in other instances, the great dramatist was true 
to both motives. The more strictly utilitarian the life, the more 
keen, it would appear, is a zest for the marvellous; from that 
principle of reaction which causes a neglected element of the soul 
to assert itself with peculiar emphasis. No class of people are 
kept in more stern and continuous alliance with reality than sail- 
ors and the poor Irish ; and yet among them fanciful superstition 
is proverbially rife. There is, therefore, no absolute incongruity 
between the most literal sagacity in affiiirs and outward experi- 
ence, and a thorough recognition of the mysterious. 

The theological acumen and hardy intelligence of the New 
England colonists did not suffice against witchcraft and its horri- 
ble results ; seers flourished among the shrewd Scotch, and gypsy 
fortune-telling in the rural districts of England. The faculty or 
sentiment to which these and other delusions appeal, in our more 
cultivated era, finds scope and gratification in the revelations 
of science ; and so nearly connected are the natural and super- 



CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 3T5 

natural, the seen and the unseen, the mysterious and the famil- 
iar, that a truly reverent and enlightened mind is often compelled 
to acknowledge that a sceptical and obstinate rationalism is as 
much opposed to truth as a visionary and credulous spirit. There 
is an intuitive as well as a reasoning faith ; and presentiments, 
dreams, vivid reminiscences, and sympathetic phenomena, of which 
introspective natures are conscious, indicate to the calmest reflec- 
tion that we are linked to the domain of moral experience and of 
destiny by more than tangible relations. Hence the receptive 
attitude of the highest order of minds in regard to spiritual theo- 
ries, the consolation found in the doctrines of Swedenborg, and 
the obvious tendency that now prevails to interpret art, literature, 
and events, according to an ideal or philosophical view. 

It is a curious fact, in the history of American letters, that the 
genius of our literary pioneer was of this introspective order. If 
we examine the writings of Brown, it is evident that they only 
rise to high individuality in the analysis of emotion, and the 
description of states of mind. In other respects, though indus- 
trious, wise, and able, he is not impressively original ; but in 
following out a metaphysical vein, in making the reader abso- 
lutely cognizant of the revery, fears, hopes, imaginings, that 
"puzzle the will," or concentrate its energies, he obeyed a singu- 
lar idiosyncrasy of his nature, a Shakspearian tendency, and one, 
at that period, almost new as a chief element of fiction. The 
powerful use made of its entrancing spell by Godwin was the 
foundation of his fame ; and it has been stated, upon good author- 
ity, that Brown's mind was put upon the track by " Caleb Wil- 
liams," and also that Godwin has been heard to allude to Brown 
as a suggestive writer in the same vein. The consciousness of 
the former was the great source of his intensity. He was one of 
those sensitive and thoughtful men who found infinite pleasure in 
the study of his own nature ; and traced the course of a passion 
or the formation of a theory with a zest and acuteness similar to 
that with which a geologist investigates fossils and strata — 
delighting in that which suggests limitless relations, and touches 
the most expansive circle of human speculation. Mrs. Radclifie 
understood how to excite the superstitious instinct, but it was by 
melo-dramatic and scenical rather than psychological means. In 



376 THE SUPERNATURALIST. 

the process of Brown there is a more rational mystery. He bases 
his marvellous incidents upon some principle of truth or fact in 
science, and keeps interest alive by the effect on the sympathies 
or curiosity of his personages. He identifies himself with the 
■working of their minds, and, by casting his best descriptions 
in autobiographical form, makes them more real through the 
personality of the narrative. He has been called an anatomist 
of the mind ; and the peculiar nature of his genius may be 
inferred from the kind of influences under which he loved to 
depict human nature — such as the phenomena of Pestilence in 
'•Ormond" and "Arthur Mervyn," Somnamlfulism, in "Edgar 
Huntley," and Ventriloquism, in " Wieland." 

This love of the marvellous, as it is called, in its ordinary 
aspects, and recognition of the spiritual, as its higher phase may 
be defined, is common to the least cultivated and the most gifted 
of human beings. Whoever has considered the speculations of 
Shelley on dreams, the theories of Coleridge in regard to the 
action and reaction of life and the soul, or heard Allston tell a 
ghost story, must have been convinced that there is a natural 
provision for w^onder as well as for reason in select intelligences. 
The art of dealing with this feeling, however, is one of the most 
subtle of inventions, that fatal step from the sublime to the ridicu- 
lous being constantly imminent. One reason that Brockden Brown 
succeeded was, that a self-possessed intelligence, a reflective pro- 
cess, goes on simultaneously before the reader's mind with the 
scene of mystery or horror enacting ; he cannot despise as w^eak 
the spectator, or the victim that can so admirably portray his 
state of feeling, and the current of his thoughts at such a crisis 
of fate. Witness the description of the scene with a panther, 
and the defence of Wieland. 

There is an association of the marvellous recorded by Dunlap, 
the friend and biographer of Brown, which links itself readily 
to this vein of the weird and adventurous he delighted to unfold. 
It appears his name of Brockden was derived from an English 
progenitor, who nearly lost his life in consequence of overhearing 
a conspiracy, when a boy, against Charles the Second, and was 
sent to America to avoid the consequences ; and there is manifest 
in the only lineal descendant of the novelist the same passion for 



CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. 377 

experiment in actual life which inspired the latter in the world 
of opinion and fancy. The vigor, directness, and energy, of 
Brown's mind, increased with discipline ; for, although his last 
novel is inferior to its predecessors, his last pamphlet is marked 
by great cogency and eloquence. His stock of knowledge, his 
range of observation, and his benign projects, expanded with his 
years ; and no judicious and kindly reader can examine his liter- 
ary remains, and ponder the facts of his brief career, without 
sharing the grief of those who lamented his early death as a 
public not less than a personal misfortune. 

Crudity seems the necessary condition of a nascent literature ; 
and a large amount of excellent material exists, in a printed form, 
which is destined to be recast, in a vital and artistic shape, by the 
American author. Style is the conservative element of ideas and 
traditions ; and the hasty manner in which many of our writers 
have produced even their best works, the absence of a high and 
nice standard of taste, as well as of inspiring literary sympathy, 
accounts for the incomplete, unlabored, and fugitive shape in 
which the national mind has chiefly developed. The exceptions 
to this general rule do not invalidate its prevalence ; and the high 
finish which Irving, Longfellow, Hawthorne, and other American 
writers, have bestowed on their productions, is in striking con- 
trast with the unequal, careless, and fragmentary character of the 
average issues of the press. 

In the case of Brown we have to regi^et the absence of careful 
revision and sustained labor. He opened a mine from which 
others have wrought images of more enduring beauty. Not 
anticipating any great result, conscious of toiling in an isolated 
field, and deprived of the encouragement to assiduous and refined 
toil which only warm and intelligent recognition afibrds. we can- 
not be surprised that he was satisfied to give utterance to his 
inventive talent, and indulge his personal taste, without striving 
to perpetuate their emanations. He wrote with great rapidity ; 
his delicate organization forbade the prolonged endurance of 
mental glow ; and, therefore, in almost every instance, his pages 
give indications of wearmess towards the close. Many of his 
works were written and printed simultaneously; he did not 
apparently realize that the vein of fiction in which he excelled 
■ 32* 



378 THE SUPERNATURALIST. 

could be worked up into a standard value, or interest ; but gave 
it vent without pausing to correct verbal inaccuracies, or condense 
and polish the style. 

He was capable of giving to his theme the unity and finish of 
'' The Sketch Book," the " Idle Man," or the " Scarlet Letter; " 
but he lived and wrote at a time and under influences in which 
such genial care received little praise ; and we must look to the 
elements and not the form of his genius in order to do justice 
to his memory. The same kind of moral diagnosis, if we may 
use the phrase, which gives to Balzac's creations their singular 
hold upon the imagination, under the impulse of literary art, 
would have enshrined the name of the American novelist ; he 
possessed as decided a love of exploring the very sources of affec- 
tion, and dissecting character through all the convolutions of 
appearance. No one can read his novels without feeling that 
BroAvn was a psychologist, as well as a scholar ; and the critic 
of judgment and candor must admit that his perception of the 
intricate in mental processes, and the profound and the conflicting 
in human emotion, if embodied in a choice dramatic or elaborate 
narrative form, would have continued to interest like the trag- 
edies of Joanna Baillie and the romances of Scott. As it is, we 
turn to our countryman's writings with that peculiar interest 
which belongs only to what is initiative ; full of promise, and 
significant of beauty, truth, and power, in a transition or inade- 
quately developed state. We trace the footsteps of genius ere 
they move with entire confidence, follow them in wayward paths, 
and turn, with curious sympathy, from the works of more for- 
tunate, though not more richly-endowed writers, to these early 
and original specimens. 



THE PAINTER OF CHARACTEE 

SIR DAYID WILKIE. 



The characteristic is an essential principle of art, and one that 
is never attained without original ability, and then rarely man- 
aged with tact. It possesses smgular attraction, in modern times, 
from the uniformity of manners, induced by high civilization. 
The peculiar zest with which an epicure enjoys game, and a 
naturalist or poet explores a primeval and uninvaded scene, is 
experienced, in a degree, by every vigorous and healthful mind, 
in finding the characteristic effectively depicted in literature and 
art, or individualized in society. The interest awakened by the 
advent of a ''lion" in the circles of Edinburgh, London, or 
Paris ; the pleasure with which we encounter, in travel, a seques- 
tered village, where the language, costume, or habits of the people, 
have retained their individuality ; and the earnest praise we lav- 
ish upon the author who succeeds in creating a fresh, consistent, 
and memorable character, are familiar evidences of the natural 
love of what is characteristic as an element of universal taste. 
Yet this obvious truth has been comparatively seldom acknowl- 
edged, and rarely acted upon. Conformity to a classical type, 
the dominion of a prescriptive standard of taste, and the tyranny 
of fashion, have combined to elevate imitation above originality ; 
and genius of a high and energetic kind has alone proved ade- 
quate to obtain recognition for the latter. 

Shakspeare gave it sanction and nurture in England, and to 
him we ascribe, in no small measure, the bold individuality of 



380 THE PAINTER OF CHARACTER. 

achievement and taste, so remarkable in the history of art and 
letters in Great Britain. It is this which accounts for the other- 
w'lse anomalous taste that unites such opposite extremes of appre- 
ciation as Walpole and Gray with Burns, Crabbe, and Dickens, 
in literature; and in art, Turner, West, and Lawrence, with 
Moreland, Hogarth, and Wilkie. There exists, indeed, an inter- 
minable dispute between the votaries of the classic and the char- 
acteristic. Only by slow degrees and most unwillingly do the 
votaries of the former yield their ground. Accustomed to look at 
nature through the lens of antiquity, they dislike to admit that 
she can be directly viewed, — that her features may be seized and 
embodied, and her spirit infused, without the intervention of that 
style which the miracles of ancient art have consecrated. But 
when an original artist perfects himself in the details of this cul- 
ture, as a means of expression, and then uses it to illustrate 
nature and manners as they actually exist, these devotees of 
antiquity are somewhat bewildered. In such a case the charge 
of ignorance or vulgarity is inadmissible. The execution proves 
high knowledge and acquaintance with standard models ; but the 
familiarity of the subjects chosen, and the fact that, instead of 
beauty according to the abstract classical idea, nature in her 
characteristic significance is the essence of the work, disturbs the 
artistic creed of these ultra conservatives. The delight which all 
classes take in the sight of these adventurous efforts, the instant 
and genuine sympathy they awaken, and the extraordinary power 
they unquestionably display, "puzzle the will '' of the elegant 
representatives of classicism; and they can only reiterate the 
arguments adduced in the old controversy in regard to the Shaks- 
pearian and Racine drama ; or have the magnanimity to acknowl- 
edge that the sphere of art is infinitely more extensive and versa- 
tile than they had imagined, and cannot be limited by any theory 
which a single touch of genius may forever annihilate. 

The career of Wilkie affords, perhaps, the most striking and 
certainly the most interesting illustration of these views. He 
began to be an artist from instinct, and seldom has the tendency 
been less modified by adventitious influences. Excepting a print 
of a Highland chief sent to his father's manse, the exercise of 
the artistic faculty was not even suggested to him by any visible 



SIR DAVID WILKIE. 381 

example of its results ; yet, on the floors and walls of his boy- 
hood's frugal home, on the smooth stones of the field, on the sand 
of the brook-side, and on his slate at school, he continually 
sketched human faces, animals, and every picturesque object that 
caught his eye; no sooner was the visitor's back turned, than 
something, so near a likeness that it was immediately recognized, 
appeared in chalk or charcoal ; groups of schoolboys surrounded 
his desk for "counterfeit presentments:" he preferred to cover 
the margin of the page with designs, to committing its text to 
memory ; and to stand, with his hands in his pockets, and mark 
the pictures his comrades unconsciously made at their sports, to 
engaging in them himself; and it was his boast that he could 
draw before he knew how to read, and paint before he could 
spell. 

That love of the characteristic was his chief inspiration, while 
thus spontaneously exercising the language of art, is evident from 
the subjects he chose and the kind of observation in which he 
delighted. His improvised drawings usually aimed at a great 
significance or whimsicality; mere imitation of uninteresting objects 
he abjured. On his way to school he loitered to sketch a gypsy 
wife or a maimed soldier, a limping sailor or a mendicant fiddler, 
and to observe groups of ploughmen ; while it is remembered of 
him that his attention was often absorbed in watching a sunbeam 
on the wall, and the chiaro 'scuro efiect of a smithy at night. He 
courted the society of good story-tellers, and displayed, under a 
demure exterior, the keenest relish of drollery and mischief 
Like the Duke of Argyle, his heart " warmed to the tartan," 
though for its picturesque rather than its patriotic associations ; 
and the two memorable experiences of his boyhood were the sight 
of the sea and a review of cavalry. Nerved by habits of simplic- 
ity, and practised in the observation of nature;' sagacious, honest, 
candid, and poor, but wholly inexperienced in the technicalities 
and refinements of art — with this native sense of the character- 
istic, and a decided genius for embodying it, he left the manse of 
Cults, at the age of fourteen, to study art in Edinburgh. 

Habits of incessant application, and a resolution to proceed 
intelligently, and ne^r, by obscure steps, according to his fellow- 
pupils, distinguished him at the Trustees' Academy. He would 



382 THE PAINTER OP CHARACTER. 

not copy the foot or hand of an ancient statue without first know- 
ing its law of expression, and accounting scientifically for the 
position of each muscle; he was thorough and constant, and 
therefore made visible progress in facility and correctness of draw- 
ing. He took a prize in a few months^ and the intervals of his 
practice were given to his favorite sphere of observation ; ever in 
pursuit of character, he frequented trysts, fairs, and market- 
places. David Allan, a kind of Scotch Teniers, was the only 
precursor of Wilkie that seems to have proved suggestive ; they 
had a natural vein in common, though essentially different ; and 
this appears to have been the exclusive source of his early educa- 
tion in art. 

An imperturbable good-nature and love of quiet fun endeared 
Wilkie to his comrades ; but his form grew thin and his cheek 
pale, from the life of assiduous routine that filled the cycle of his 
youth, xinxious not to invade, more than necessity compelled, the 
narrow resources of his family, he earnestly sought that command 
of art that would enable him to render it lucrative ; and. on his 
return home, he began at once to seek, and permanently repre- 
sent, the characteristic phases of life and manners in his native 
district, where, in boyhood, he had grown familiar with them, 
and whither he had returned with power to do justice to his con- 
ceptions. 

The history of his first attempt, in the peculiar sphere for which 
nature so obviously adapted him, is one of those pleasing and im- 
pressive episodes in the uneventful career of genius, which confirm 
our faith in its natural resources and inevitable destiny. With 
an old chest of drawers for an easel, and a herdboy for a lay- 
figure, he began to put upon canvas a village fair. The scene of 
the picture was the adjacent hamlet of Pitteslie, the site of which, 
and its local features, he first carefully sketched. His groups and 
figures were gleaned on a market-day, and consisted of old women 
and bonnie lassies, venders of poultry, shoes, eggs, and candy, a 
travelling auctioneer, a ballad- singer, a gayly-decked recruiting 
sergeant; and the grave forms of ministers and elders whose por- 
traits he transferred to a blank leaf of his Bible from the uncon- 
scious congregation at the kirk. Thus directly from life and 
nature every trait of the picture was derived. Its variety of 



SIR DAVID WILKIE. 383 

character and dramatic style charmed the uninitiated, and the 
impressive originality of its conception won the favor of tasteful 
and unprejudiced observers. The number of the latter, hoAvever, 
was too limited at home for him to expect there the encourage- 
ment he needed^ and while he made studies in the vicinity which 
proved of great future use, and sketched outlines of village and 
rustic life which became the means of many subsequent triumphs, 
his chief resource in Scotland was portrait-painting. 

With the gains of several months' labor in this field, and 
means cheerfully advanced by his father and neighbors to the 
best of their slender ability, he went to London, like many an 
adventurous genius, with a gift of nature to develop, upon the 
recognition of which his prosperity wholly depended. We may 
imagine the feelings of the sagacious but demure young Scot, as 
he exchanged the familiar landscape of moor and mountain for 
the English coast, the ship-covered Thames, and the smoky 
canopy of London. Undaunted by the multitudinous life around 
him, with a modest but determined soul, he isolated himself, and 
patiently toiled. For nine long months he lived in humble 
lodgings, dined for thirteen pence a day, drew from his own limbs 
as models, and blacked his own shoes for economy. Illness as 
well as poverty beset him ; but his studies at the academy, his 
observations in the streets, and his labors at the easel, were unre- 
mitted. He placed his pictures in a shop-window, and groups 
would cluster round and enjoy them ; they found ready purchas- 
ers at six guineas each, but distrust of their own taste prevented 
many from acknowledging the merit they could not but feel ; and 
Wilkie corresponded w^ith his father on the subject of returning 
to the manse and renouncing his dream of metropolitan success. 

True to his domestic attachments, he sought with his first 
earnings to procure a piano-forte for his sister ; and at the shop 
of a distinguished manufacturer he excited curiosity, which led to 
an examination of his portfolio, and, at length, to the exhibition 
of Pitteslie Fair to the Countess of Mansfield, a patroness of the 
instrument-maker. Lord Mansfield ordered a picture of Wilkie, 
selecting his sketch of " The Village Politician" as the subject. 
The first idea of this work seems to have arisen from a popular 
ballad, but the excitement of the French Revolution, as it 



384 THE PAINTER OF CHARACTER. 

operated in rural districts upon the village gossips, over the ale- 
house Gazette, rendered it an epitome of the times ; while in its 
details, as in the former instance, the painter followed nature 
with graphic authenticity. 

An incidental discussion between several artists of distinction, 
which resulted in a visit to Wilkie's humble studio, contributed, 
at the same moment, to draw attention to his merits : and the 
exhibition of the "Village Politician" at the Royal Academy was 
an epoch in the history of English art. Although Lord Mans- 
field, in his pecuniary arrangement with Wilkie, did not emulate 
the liberality for which > patrons of art are renowned in Great 
Britain, yet the artist's manly behavior on. the occasion, and the 
fame of the picture, had the immediate effect of establishing him 
in public estimation. Thenceforth his reputation was fixed as an 
original painter; in him the characteristic found its legitimate 
exponent; and although Northcote sneered at his subjects as 
belonging to the '' pauper school," and Haydon, in his admira- 
tion of the grand style, disputed with him as to the claims of his 
sphere of art, he calmly pursued his course ; and the Auroras and 
Calypsos of the exhibition were neglected, in their artificial 
beauty, while the iron- railing about Wilkie's homely but true 
and natural creations, was constantly surrounded by eager 
throngs of all classes, whose looks of wonder, mirth, or tender- 
ness, bore witness to their genuine emotion. 

The effect of Wilkie's success upon the people of his native 
place formed a striking contrast to their original misgivings as 
to his career. The ominous shake of the head, with which the 
narrow but worthy presbyters had listened to what they deemed 
his profane intent, gave place to the reluctant confession that he 
was an ingenious lad: the old villagers, who had been most 
offended at finding their respectable faces transferred to the pic- 
ture of a Fair without their knowledge and consent, now called at 
the manse, to thank the young artist for the enduring honor 
bestowed by his miraculous pencil ; the rustic satirist, who had 
declared of one of his early sketches that it was more like a 
flounder than a foot, was now voted a simpleton; and the old 
dame, whose prophecy of the boy David, that he would live to be 
knighted, had been ridiculed, now won quite a reputation for 



SIR DAVID WILKIE. 



885 



second-sightj especially as the prediction was soon literally ful- 
filled. 

Next to the patronage secured by his fame, its most valuable 
result was social advancement. He immediately gained the 
friendship and confidence, and, in many instances, the habitual 
society, of the leading men of rank, genius, and character, in the 
kingdom, and preserved the benefit first obtained through artistic 
genius, by his rich humor, unalloyed simplicity, and candid good- 
nature. Indeed, no better evidence of the solid nature of Wil- 
kie's gifts and acquirements could be afforded, than that shown 
in the manner of receiving what has been justly called "this 
gust of fame." His enthusiasm remained calm as before, his 
habits of application unchanged, his assiduity in the study and 
representation of the characteristic increased ; he seemed only 
confirmed, by the public response to his aspirations, in their essen- 
tial truth and efficacy ; no symptom of elation appeared ; and it 
soon became evident to all that Wilkie's modesty was equal to his 
originality. 

It is impossible to follow his subsequent career without acknowl- 
edging the peculiar value of individual patronage to the cause of 
art. We have seen that long and careful observation, repeated 
experiment, and patient study, are essential to the production 
of such works as those adapted to his genius. To toil thus 
upon a doubtful subject, to create instead of ministering to taste 
of this kind, or to sacrifice a sphere so original and attractive for 
portrait-painting, are equally undesirable alternatives ; it is need- 
ful that the artist should be cheered by a reliable destination for 
his work, that he should devote himself to it with confidence, and 
a spirit of freedorh, hope, and self-possession, such as can never 
be realized when the disposition and recompense of this labor is 
wholly precarious. 

Accordingly, we deem "Wilkie's successive admirable efibrts the 
legitimate fruits of tasteful individual encouragement ; the com- 
mission of Lord Mansfield was immediately followed by one 
from Lord Mulgrave, and others from the Duke of Gloucester 
and Sir George Beaumont. The latter gentleman may be con- 
sidered the ideal of an artist's friend. » Thoroughly versed in the 
principles, history, and practice of art, and only excluded from a 
33 



386 THE PAINTER OF CHARACTER. 

high share of its honoi-s bj a want of executive facility, he not 
only ordered a picture with a tasteful wisdom that enlisted e very- 
true artist's gratitude, but watched its progress with an appre- 
ciative enthusiasm that awakened the best sympathies of the 
painter ; his tact and liberality were equal to his intelligence and 
taste. His letters to Wilkie are beautiful illustrations of charac- 
ter, as well as evidences of artistic knowledge and zeal. His 
home was the favorite resort of the fraternity, and his visits and 
letters cheered the labors and the lives of a class of men who 
need more and receive less recognition than any other. 

Wilkie continued to illustrate the subjects that from the first 
ai'rested his mind ; usually they were tinged with his own expe- 
rience, and had a distinct national association ; and always the 
graces of execution were made to elucidate the characteristic in 
expression. "The Blind Fiddler." "The Letter of Introduc- 
tion/' " The Reading of the Will," " The Penny Wedding," 
" The Card Players," •• The Newsmonger," •• The Unexpected 
Tisitor," -'The Cut Finger," •* Guess my Name," "The Parish 
Beadle," "Rent Day," and "The ^Rabbit on the Wall," are 
pictures, the very names of which at once suggest the genius of 
Wilkie. the originality of his sphere, and the causes of his popu- 
larity. Except to professional readers, the description of a pic- 
ture is usually tedious and vague : the general chai*acter of those 
of Wilkie may be infeiTed from their names : while the inimitable 
skill and effect of their execution have been made familiar by the 
excellent enorravinc^s of the oridnals so widelv distributed on 
both sides of the ocean. Like the poems of Burns, they speak 
directly to the heart and fancy, to the sense of humor and 
humanity : and, humble as is their apparent aim. few works of 
art breathe so universal a language ; for it is derived from and 
addressed to our common nature, with only such local and indi- 
vidual modification as give it significance and personality. 

The " Reading of the Will" is said to have been suggested by 
Bannister, the comedian : it is one of the most characteristic not 
only of Wilkie" s pictures, but of the school to which it belongs ; 
it is a kind of sublimated Hogarth, a genuine scene in life's 
drama, expressive, true, and having that fine mixture of nature, 
irony of observation, and skill, which forms the excellence of 



SIR DAVID WILKIE. 



38T 



the domestic style of art. The business air of the attorney, the snuf- 
fling boy with his marbles, the pensive coquetry of the bouncing 
widow, the gallant devotion of the stalwart officer, and the flus- 
tering, indignant movement of the piqued dame, are eloquent 
exhibitions of character. For unity of design artists give the 
preference to the "Blind Fiddler;" the old man's complacent 
look at the sight of the children's pleasure, the boy imitating the 
musician with a pair of bellows, the leaping of the infant, and the 
mother's sympathetic delight, form a family scene, under the influ- 
ence of music, at once sweet, natural, and harmonious. 

Probably no single work exhibited at the Royal Academy ever 
produced the immediate effect of "The Waterloo Gazette." From 
the women leaning out of the windows to drink in the thrilling 
news, to the oyster suspended on the half-raised fork of the 
entranced listener, every figure and object indicates the effect of 
the tidings, and this so vividly as to absorb and infect spectators 
of every class. 

The English school of painting is admirably illustrative of 
English life and character. It is essentially domestic, and often 
so when professedly historical. Its landscapes, fiimily groups, 
rural manners, or characteristic subjects, depicted with elegance, 
nicety, expression, and truth, one would instantly infer were 
destined to become familiar and endeared to vigilant eyes in the 
privacy of home. Grandeur of design, and exaltation of senti- 
ment, — the pictorial generalization of the old masters, intended 
to adorn cathedrals and princely walls, — would be singularly- out 
of place in domestic retreats. A consciousness on the part of 
the artists that they thus minister to the individual and the 
family seems to chasten, refine, and genially inspire their labors. 
There is something almost personally attaching in some of these 
limners, as there is in the household writers of Britain ; and we 
feel towards Gainsborough, Leslie, and Wilkie, as we do towards 
Thomson, Goldsmith, and Sterne. Yet one can scarcely imagine 
a greater variety of style than the renowned painters of Eng- 
land include ; few contrasts in art being more absolute than those 
between Moreland and Turner, West and Leslie, or Reynolds and 
Lawrence. 

In the works and artistic opinions of Wilkie there is more 



388 THE PAINTER OF CHARACTER. 

intelligence than imagination ; good sense, clear reasoning, and 
thoughtfulness, form the basis of his genius ; and these are the 
very qualities which distinguish the English from the Italians 
and Dutch, — the former having sense as the main element of 
their artistic activity, the second imagination, and the latter imi- 
tation. " Art," says Wilkie, "is only art when it adds mind to 
form." Elsewhere he speaks of Turners '"'glamour of color," 
and observes : " With a certain class of subjects it is necessary 
to put in much that is imaginary, or without authority, and to 
leave out much unadapted for painting." 

Few artists uniformly had a better reason for the faith that was in 
them than Wilkie : and his memory and observation were equally 
characterized by this intelligent spirit. Jerusalem recalled to his 
mind the imagination of Poussin, and seemed built for all time ; 
while he recognized in the works of Titian, Paul Veronese, and 
Piombo, the closest resemblance to the Syrian race, and ascribed 
it to the constant intercourse between Venice and the East. 
From his comprehensive style, he saw that Michael Angelo's 
prophets and sibyls resembled the Jews of the Holy City ; while 
Raphael and Da Vinci recalled nature, tie seems justly to have 
understood himself, and never painted well except when self- 
impelled to a subject. He declined a commission to execute a 
picture of the death of Sydney, from a conviction of his inapti- 
tude for the particular style required ; and all Sir Walter's 
counsel to him, in behalf of certain picturesque and memorable 
localities in Scotland, was thrown away upon the artist, who, 
meanwhile, was busy in his own manner, collecting pictorial data, 
and providing what his friends called ''relays of character," — 
working up his inimitable conceptions, and, at intervals, replen- 
ishing his purse by limning a portrait. In the latter department, 
his most elaborate works are the Queen and her Council, Wel- 
lington, O'Connell, and Scott's family at Abbotsford. 

In one of his felicitous speeches, Wilkie remarked of his native 
country : ' ' Bleak as are her mountains, and homely as are her 
people, they have yet in their habits and occupations a charac- 
teristic acuteness and feeling ; " and these he seemed as much 
inspired to embody and preserve as Scott the historic associations 
or Burns the rustic sentiment of the land : and his eminent sue- 



SIR DAVID WILKIE. 389 

cess is chiefly attributable to the possession, in a high degree, of 
the traits of his nation — sagacity, perseverance, and a kind of 
implicit faith in the understanding as the guide to truth. His 
habit of interrupting conversation whenever he did not clearly 
understand what was said, and insisting on an explanation, his 
comments on art, and his patient experiments, both observant and 
executive, in order to arrive at the actual reflection of nature, 
evince a self-reliance and intelligent persistency that insured an 
ultimate triumph. He was usually an entire year in producing 
a woiik ; it first existed vaguely in his mind for a long interval, 
and around the primitive conception were gradually clustered 
hints caught from experience ; and, when at last on the easel, 
repeated changes brought it slowly to perfection. It indicates 
unusual perspicuity in his teacher at Edinburgh that he wrote 
the elder Wilkie that there was something of Correggio's man- 
ner in his son's drawing, and that "the more delicacy required 
in the execution the more successful would he be." He also 
prophesied his ability for the higher range of art, founded on 
t^is truth, and exactitude in the treatment of humble subjects. 
Yet, when Wilkie first presented himself with the Earl of Lev- 
en's introduction to the Trustees' Academy, he was refused 
admission on the ground of his technical ignorance. The defi- 
ciency in imitative skill, which he had enjoyed no adequate 
opportunity to gain, was thus suffered to blind the professor to 
his originality of conception — the rarest and most valuable gift 
of the artist. When culture and experience had given him a 
control of the vocabulary of art, his genius unfolded into what 
has been aptly called " the skill of Hogarth, and the glow with- 
out the grossness of Teniers.'' There is always a moral as well 
as a graphic power in his works, a lesson of humanity, a glimpse 
of universal truth, which exalt the homeliest details, and give 
significance to every casual touch. 

Wilkie' s artist-life was chiefly diversified by social recreation 
and travel. On his journeys to the Continent, his constant atten- 
tion was given to pictures, and his letters abound in wise, just, 
find independent criticism. In Germany he enjoyed the satis- 
faction of finding two of his best works held in great estimation, 
— " The Reading of the Will," and " The Toilet of a Bride ; " 
33* 



390 THE PAINTER OF CHARACTER. 

the possession of the former having been amicably disputed by 
the kings of En<2;land and Bavaria. 

He revelled in the examination of the Correggios at Parma, 
gazed with interest on Rembrandt's house at Antwerp, was 
reminded of Cujp at Nimeguen, and studied IMichael Angelo 
with reverence in Italy. He took the Sultan's portrait at Con- 
stantinople, and was honored by a public dinner at Rome, at 
which the Duke of Hamilton presided, and all the artists of dis- 
tinction in the Eternal City were present. His last pilgrimage 
was to the East ; and the record of his impressions overflows 
with a keen yet holy appreciation of its scenes and history. 
With his portfolio enriched by sketches of the landscape, cos- 
tume, and physiognomy, in which that memorable region abounds, 
his views of art enlarged, and his fancy teeming with new sub- 
jects, on his way home, his life prematurely closed on board an 
oriental steamer in the harbor of Gibraltar. 

His views of art were both acute and comprehensive. He 
recognized the spiritual aim of Correggio, and the detailed fidel- 
ity of the Dutch painters, and, in his last manner, more perfectly 
united them than any previous limner. " Take away simplicity 
From art," he writes, "and away goes all its influence;" yet 
elsewhere he declares that the "power of stirring deep emotion, 
and not of overcoming difficulties, is her peculiar glory." He 
considered art a language to be used wisely, and sought his own 
material among the pipers and deer-stalkers of Athol, in the 
byway hovels of Ireland, in Jew's Row, London, in projecting 
gables, in byway incidents, in the sagacity of mind and kindli- 
ness of heart of the aged, in the mirth of the Lowlands, in the 
figures at the public bath on the Danube, in the old scribe at the 
mosque door, and in the incidental groups, brilliant harmony of 
color, and effective light and shade, which nature and life afforded. 
He appealed to the immediate ; selected themes of national inter- 
est, and made noble pictures out of familiar materials. Hence 
the ardent recognition and unbounded popularity he enjoyed. 
" From Giotto to Michael Angelo," he remarks, '• expression and 
sentiment seem the first things thought of, while those who fol- 
lowed seemed to have allowed technicalities to get the better of 



SIR DAVID WILKIE. 391 

them." In Wilkie's happiest efforts the desirable proportion 
between these two elements of art is completely realized. 

An ingenious work has been published to show the effect of 
different mechanic trades upon the animal economy ; a curious 
branch of the inquiry might include the influence of special kinds 
of mental action upon the brain and nerves. We have seen that 
Wilkie's superiority consisted in the minutiae of expression 
attained by intense study. After thus executing several renowned 
works, he seems to have felt great cerebral disturbance; the 
power of sustained attention was invaded ; when his mind became 
fixed upon a sketch or a conception, suddenly a mist would rise 
before his eyes, his ideas would grow bewildered, and only 
after an interval of repose or recreation could he again com- 
mand his faculties. The discriminating reader of his own 
account of the process by which he worked out his artistic 
ideas cannot fail to recognize in the assiduous concentration 
of thought upon the details of expression, if not the proximate 
cause, at least an aggravation of this tendency to cerebral disease. 
A succession of domestic bereavements and pecuniary difficulties, 
consequent upon the failure of his bankers, increased these symp- 
toms in Wilkie, induced his Eastern tour, and doubtless occa- 
sioned his apparently sudden demise. 

Perhaps, too, the mental necessity of a change of habit led 
him at first to modify his style, and seek, in his last pic- 
tures, more general effects. From whatever cause, he certainly 
astonished even his admirers by the graceful ease with which 
he, all at once, rose to the dignity of historical subjects, and a 
more exalted dramatic expression. It is true that Wilkie is 
thought to have wholly failed as an ideal artist, but this opinion 
is probably owing to the comparative superiority of his character 
pictures. Hints of another phase of his genius he had, indeed, 
given at an early date, in the beautiful sentiment of the scene 
from the Gentle Shepherd, — one of his first works, — and subse- 
quently in the picture of " Alfred the Great in the Neatherd's 
Cottage ; " but the feeling and power displayed in the " Chelsea 
Pensioners," the " Maid of Saragossa," and "Knox Preaching 
the Reformation," proved that Wilkie could soar, at will; into 
the higher spheres of art, and carry his principles of execution 



392 THE PAINTER OF CnARACTER. 

into the noblest class of subjects. These and other pictures of 
the kind, besides possessing his usual merit of being eminently 
characteristic, were not less remarkable for their comprehensive 
spirit. The '• Peep o' Day " tells in two figures the whole story 
of Ireland's wrongs; the "Chelsea Pensioners" is the most 
pathetic tribute to patriotic valor ever put upon canvas : sailors 
and soldiers, with their wives and children, wept over it at the 
exhibition. 

The " Spanish Posada" is an epitome of modern Spain, 
grouping, as it does, with such truth to fact and nature, a 
Guerilla council of war, a Dominican, a monk of the Escurial, a 
Jesuit, a patriot in the costume of Valencia, the landlady serving 
her guests with chocolate, a mendicant student of Salamanca, 
with his lexicon and cigar, whispering soft things in her ear, a 
contrabandist on a mule, an armed Castilian, a dwarf with a 
guitar, a goatherd, the muzzled house-dog, the pet lamb, and the 
Guadarma Mountains in the background. Wilkie's picture and 
Byron's verses have made the Maid of Saragossa familiar to the 
civilized world ; but perhaps no single work combines the excel- 
lence of Wilkie in a more impressive manner than " Knox." 
The still-life is as exact as if painted by a Flemish master, and 
as suggestive as if designed by Hogarth ; all the faces are 
authentic portraits ; — the expression of the stern and eloquent 
reformer, and the effect of what he says upon the different per- 
sons assembled, are absolutely and relatively characteristic. The 
whole scene is, as it were, thus redeemed in vital significance 
from the past. Wilkie explored the pal^ice at Holyrood, the 
portraits of the leaders of that day, and attended the preach- 
ing of Chalmers and Irving, to obtain the materials of this 
inimitable work, in which the highest graces of the Flemish and 
Italian schools seem united. Calm, observant, persevering, and 
acute, Wilkie thus won successive victories in art, and proved his 
faith in its conservative worth by embodying memorable national 
events, until he fairly earned the praise of being the " most orig- 
inal, vigorous, and varied, of the British painters ." He con- 
tinued, as he advanced, to bear his honors meekly, from the 
freedom of his native town to the order of knighthood, the iclat 
of an exhibition of his collected works, the friendship of the 



SIR DAVID WILKIE 



393 



noble, the gifted, and the powerful, to the annual enthusiasm 
excited by his contributions to the academy. His birth was reg- 
istered in an obscure Scotch parish, and his death in the log-book 
of a Mediterranean steamer ; yet, within the fifty-two years thus 
included, how richly did he contribute to art, win fame, and vin- 
dicate genius ! 



THE LAY PREACHER 

JOSEPH ADDISON. 



There is not a name in the annals of English literature more 
widely associated with pleasant recollections than that of Addi- 
son. His beautiful hymns trembled on our lips in childhood ; 
his cheerful essays first lured us, in youth, to a sense of the minor 
philosophy of life ; we tread his walk at Oxford with loving steps ; 
gaze on his portrait, at Holland House or the Bodleian Gallery, 
as on the lineaments of a revered friend ; recall his journey into 
Italy, his inefiectual maiden speech, his successful tragedy, his 
morning studies, his evenings at Button's, his unfortunate mar- 
riage, and his holy death-bed, as if they were the experiences of 
one personally known, as well as fondly admired ; and we muse 
beside the marble that designates his sepulchre in Westminster 
Abbey, between those of his first patron and his most cherished 
friend, with an interest such as is rarely awakened by the 
memory of one familiar to us only through books. The harmony 
of his character sanctions his writings ; the tone of the Spectator 
breathes friendliness as well as instruction ; and the tributes of 
contemporaries to his private worth, and of generations to his 
literary excellence, combine with our knowledge of the vicissi- 
tudes of his life, to render his mind and person as near to our 
sympathies as they are high in our esteem. Over his faults we 
throw the veil of charity, and cherish the remembrance of his 
benevolence and piety, his refinement and wisdom, as the sacred 
legacy of an intellectual benefactor. 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 395 

This posthumous regard is confirmed by the appreciation of 
his coevals. Not only did Addison find a faithful patron in 
Halifax and a cordial recognition from the public, but these 
testimonies to the merit of the author were exceeded by the 
love and deference bestowed on the man. Sir Richard Steele, 
with all his frank generosity, was jealous of Tickell's place in 
the heart of their common friend, Tickell's elegiac tribute to 
whom has been justly pronounced one of the most feeling and 
graceful memorials of departed excellence in English verse. 
When Budgell, a contributor to the Spectator, became a suicide, 
he endeavored to justify the rash act by the example and reason- 
ing of Addison's Cato. When Pope turned his satirical muse 
upon the gentle essayist, he polished the terms and modified the 
censure, as if involuntary respect chastened the spirit of ridicule. 
Dryden welcomed him to the ranks of literature, and Boileau 
greeted him with praise on his first visit to France. Throughout 
his life, the distinction he gained by mental aptitude and culture 
was confirmed by integrity and geniality of character. Even 
party rancor yielded to the moral dignity and kindliness of Addi- 
son ; and his opponents, when in power, respected his intercession, 
and would not sufier diiFerence of opinion to chill their affection. 
Lady Montagu thought his company delightful. Lord Chester- 
field declared him the most modest man he had ever seen. When 
he called Gay to his bedside and asked forgiveness, with his 
dying breath, for some unrecognized negligence with regard to 
that author's interest, the latter protested, with tearful admira- 
tion, that he had nothing to pardon and everything to regret. 
Swift's jealousy of Addison is an emphatic proof of his merit ; — 
the literary gladiator, unsatisfied with his triumphs, obviously 
turned a jaundiced eye upon the literary artist, whose object was 
social reform and intellectual diversion, instead of party warfare 
and intolerant satire. " I will not," says the cynical dean, 
'' meddle with the Spectator, let him fab^ sex- it to the world's 
end." The allusion to the improvement of women, to which this 
new form of literature so effectually ministered, is unfortunate, 
as coming from a man who, at the very time, was ruthlessly tri- 
fling with the deepest instincts of the female heart. Woman is, 
indeed, indebted to Addison and his fraternity, for giving a new 



396 THE LAY PREACHER. 

impulse to her better education, and a more generous scope to her 
intellectual tastes. So much was tliis aim and result of the Spec- 
tator recognized, that Goldoni, in one of his comedies, alludes to 
a female philosopher as made such by the habitual perusal of it. 
Johnson's observations on Addison are reverent as well as criti- 
cal ; he pays homage to his character, and advises all, who desire 
to acquire a pure English style, to make a study of his writings. 
Nor have such tributes ceased with the fluctuations of taste and 
the progress of time. Of all the eloquent illustrations of Eng- 
lish literary character which Macaulay's brilliant rhetoric has 
yielded, not one glows with a warmer appreciation, or more dis- 
criminating yet lofty praise, than the beautiful essay on Addi- 
son's Life and Writings, prefixed to the American edition, which 
is the most complete and best annotated that has yet appeared. 

The tranquil and religious atmosphere of an English parson- 
age chastened the early days of Addison ; and although a few 
traditions indicate that he was given to youthful pranks, it is 
evident that the tenor of his character was remarkably thought- 
ful and reserved. During his ten years' residence at Oxford 
he was a devoted and versatile student, and it is to the discipline 
of classical acquirements that we owe the fastidious correctness 
of his style. The mastery he obtained over the Latin tongue 
revealed to him the nice relations between thought and language ; 
and he wrote English with the simplicity, directness, and grace, 
which still render the Spectator a model of prose composition. 
Seldom has merely correct and tasteful verse, however, been so 
lucrative as it proved to him. His Latin poems first secured his 
election to Magdalen College ; his translations of a part of the 
Georgics, and their inscription to Dryden, di'ew from that veteran 
author the warmest recognition ; his poem to King William 
obtained for him the patronage of Lord Somers, Keeper of the 
Great Seal, to whom it was addressed. BQs poetical epistle to 
Montagu from Italy was but the graceful acknowledgment of the 
Chancellor's agency in procuring him a pension of three hun- 
dred pounds. His poem of " The Campaign," written at the 
request of Lord Godolphin, to celebrate the victory of Hoch- 
stadt, gained him the office of Commissioner of Appeals ; and 
thenceforth we find him appointed to successive and profitable 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 397 

offices, from that of Keeper of the Records in Birmiiigham's 
Tower, to that of Secretary of State, from which he retired with 
a pension of fifteen hundred pounds. Besides official visits to 
Hanover and Ireland, soon after his literary qualifications had 
won him the patronage of Halifax, he made a tour abroad, 
remained several months at Blois to perfect himself in French, 
mingled with the best circles of Paris, Rome, and Geneva, and 
surveyed the historical scenes of the Italian peninsula with the 
eyes of a scholar. These opportunities to study mankind and to 
observe nature were not lost upon Addison. He was ever on 
the alert for an original specimen of humanity, and interested by 
natural phenomena, as well as cognizant of local associations 
derived from a thorough knowledge of Roman authors. We can 
imagine no culture more favorable to the literary enterprise in 
which he subsequently engaged, than this solid basis of classical 
learning, followed by travel on the Continent, where entirely new 
phases of scenery, opinions, and society, were freely revealed to 
his intelligent curiosity, and succeeded by an official career that 
brought him into responsible contact with the realities of life. 
Thus enriched by his lessons of experience, and disciplined by 
accurate study, when Addison first sent over from Ireland a con- 
tribution to his friend Steele's Tatler, he unconsciously opened a 
vein destined to yield intellectual refreshment to all who read his 
vernacular, and to ally Iris name to the most agreeable and useful 
experiment in modern literature. 

Never did the art of writing prove a greater personal blessing 
than to Addison. His knowledge, wit, and taste, were not at his 
oral command, except in the society of intimate friends. The 
presence of strangers destroyed his self-possession ; and, as a 
public speaker, he failed through constitutional diffidence. Yet 
no one excelled him in genial and suggestive conversation. The 
fluency and richness of his colloquial powers were alike remark- 
able ; but the world knew him only as a respectable poet and 
scholar, and a faithful civic officer, until the Spectator inau- 
gurated that peculiar kind of literature which seemed expressly 
made to give scope to such a nature as his. There he talked on 
paper in association with an imaginary club, and under an 
anonymous signature. No curious .eyes made his tongue falter j 
34 



398 THE LAY PREACHER. 

no pert sarcasm brought a flush to his cheek. In the calm exer- 
cise of his benign fancy and wise criticism, he made his daily 
comments upon the fashion, literature, and characters of the day, 
with all the playful freedom of coffee-house discussion, united to 
the thoughtful style of private meditation. Thus his sensitive 
mind had full expression, while his native modesty was spared ; 
and the Spectator was his confessional, where he uttered his 
thoughts candidly in the ear of the public, without being awed 
by its obvious presence. Taste, and not enthusiasm, inspired 
Addison ; hence his slender claim to the title of a poet. His 
rhymes, even when faultless and the vehicles of noble thoughts, 
rarely glow with sentiment. They are usually studied, graceful, 
correct, but devoid of poetic significance ; and yet, owing to the 
dearth of poetry in his day, and the partialities incident to friend- 
ship and to faction, Addison ejijoyed an extensive reputation as a 
poet. There are beautiful turns of expression in his "Letter 
from Italy," — usually considered the best of his occasional 
poems. The famous simile of the angel and some animated 
rhetoric redeem "The Campaign" from entire mediocrity; and 
scholars will find numerous instances of felicitous rendering into 
English verse in his translations. Yet these incidental merits 
do not give Addison any rank in the highest department of liter- 
ature to readers familiar with Burns and Byron, Coleridge and 
Wordsworth. He was an eloquent rhymer, but no legitimate 
votary of the Muse. It is the dying soliloquy of " Cato " alone 
that now survives ; and yet few English tragedies, of modern 
date, were introduced with such eclat, or attended by more tribu- 
tary offerings. Pope, Steele, and Dr. Young, sounded its praises 
in verse ; the Whig party espoused it as a classic embodiment of 
liberal principles ; and its production has been called the grand 
climacteric of Addison's reputation. On the night of its first 
representation, we are told that the author " wandered behind 
the scenes with restless and unappeasable solicitude." So far 
as immediate success may be deemed a test of ability, he had 
reason to be satisfied with the result. The play was acted at 
London and Oxford for many nights, with great applause. 
" Cato," writes Pope, " was not so much the wonder of Rome 
in his days, as he is of Britain in ours." What revolutions in 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 899 

public taste have since occurred ; and how difficult is it to rec- 
oncile the admiration this di-ama excited with the subsequent 
appreciation of Shakspeare ! Even as a classic play, how infe- 
rior in beauty of diction, grandeur of sentiment, and richness of 
metaphor, to the Grecian theme which the lamented Talfourd 
vitalized with Christian sentiment, and arrayed in all the charms 
of poetic art ! Neither the fifty guineas that Bolingbroke pre- 
sented to the actor who personated Cato, nor the Prologue of 
Pope, could buoy up this lifeless though scholarly performance 
on the tide of fame. The whole career of Addison as a writer of 
verse yields new evidence of the inefficacy of erudition, taste, and 
even a sense of the beautiful, and good literary judgment, where 
poetry is the object. There must be a divine instinct, a fervor 
of soul, " an idea dearer than self," or the mechanism of verse is 
alone produced. 

Addison was not a man of ardent feelings. The emotional in 
his nature was checked and chilled by prudence, by discipline, 
and by reflection. We can discover but one native sentiment that 
glowed in his heart to a degree which justified its poetical expres- 
sion, and that is devotion. Compare his hymns — evidently the 
overflowing of gratitude, trust, and veneration — with his frigid 
drama and his political verses. There is a genuine and a memo- 
rable earnestness in these religious odes. They were the offspring 
of his experience, prompted by actual states of mind, and accord- 
ingly they still find a place in our worship and linger in our 
memories. " The earliest compositions that I recollect taking any 
pleasure in," says Burns, in a letter to Dr. More, ''were 'The 
Vision of Mirza,' and a rhyme of Addison's, beginning 'How are 
thy servants blest, Lord ! ' I particularly remember one half- 
stanza, which was music to my boyish ear : 

' For though in dreadfal whirls we hung 
High on the broken wave.' " 

The hymn referred to was suggested by the writer's providential 
escape during a fearful storm encountered on the coast of Italy. 

An able critic remarks that the love-scenes are the worst in 
"Cato; " and there is no rhymer of the time who exhibits so 
little interest in the tender passion. In "The Drummer " and 



400 THE LAY PREACHER. 

"Rosamond" there are indications of a playful invention and 
fanciful zest, which, like the most characteristic passages of the 
Spectator, evince that Addison's best vein was the humorous and 
the colloquial. In this his individuality appelirs, and the man 
shines through the scholar and courtier. We forget such prosaic 
lines as 

** But I 've already troubled you too long," 

with which he closes his "Letter from Italy," and think of him 
in the more vivid phase of a kindly censor and delightful com- 
panion. 

The " Dialogues on Medals " is the most characteristic of Addi- 
son's works prior to the Spectator. The subject, by its classical 
associations, elicited his scholarship and gratified his taste. Re- 
garding " medallic history" as " a kind of printing before the art 
was invented," he points out the emblematic and suggestive mean- 
ing of coins with tact and discrimination, and illustrates the 
details of numerous medals by reference to the Latin poets. In 
the style we recognize those agreeable turns of thought and graces 
of language which soon afterward made the author so famous in 
periodical literature. His contemplative mind found adequate 
hints in these authentic memorials of the past, and it was evi- 
dently a charming occupation to infer from the garlands, games, 
costume, ships, columns, and physiognomies, thus preserved on 
metal, the history of the wars and individuals commemorated. 
His numerous translations, political essays, and letters, are now 
chiefly interesting as illustrative of the transitions of public opin- 
ion, and the studies and social relations of the author. In his 
"Remarks on Italy " there are curious facts, which the traveller 
of our day may like to compare with those of his own experience. 
The tone of the work is pleasant ; but its specialite m classical 
allusion, and to modern taste it savors of pedantry. The com- 
parative absence of earnest poetical feeling is manifest throughout. 
The reader who has wandered over the Italian peninsula with 
Childe Harold or Corinne finds Addison rather an unattractive 
cicerone. It is remarkable that he was so rarely inspired, during 
the memorable journey, by those associations which the master- 
spirits of Italian and English literature have thrown around that 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 401 

classic land. At Venice lie is not haunted by '' the gentle lady 
wedded to the Moor," nor does the noble Portia rise to view; he 
passes through Ferrara without a thought of Tasso or Ariosto ; 
and at Ravenna he does not even allude to the tomb of Dante. He 
seems to have looked upon Fiesole oblivious of Milton, and passed 
through Yerona heedless of Juliet's tomb. The saints and Latin 
authors won his entire regard. He copied a sermon of St. An- 
thony, at Bologna, and a letter of Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn, 
in the Vatican. His observations on local characteristics, how- 
ever, are intelligent ; he was the first English writer to describe 
San Marino ; and, to appreciate this work, we should remember 
that it was published beforfe the age of guide-books and steam, and 
in accordance with the taste for classical learning and the need of 
information then prevalent. 

To the majority of readers, at this day, the Spectator is doubt- 
less a tame book. They miss, in its pages, the rapid succession 
of incidents, the melodramatic display, and the rhetorical vivacity, 
which distinguish modern fiction and criticis^i. Life is more 
crowded with events, and the world of opinion more diversified, 
society is more- complex, and knowledge more widely diffused, 
than at that day, and therefore a greater intensity marks the 
experience of the individual and the products of literature. But 
it is in this very direction that popular taste is at fault ; the over- 
action, the moral fever and restlessness of the times, have infected 
writers as well as readers. Both are dissatisfied with the natural 
and the genuine, and have recourse to artificial stimulants and 
conventional expedients ; and these are as certain to react unfa- 
vorably in habits of thought and in authorship, as in scientific and 
practical affairs. It is to this tendency to conform the art of 
writing to the standard of a locomotive and experimental age that 
we ascribe the tricts of pen-craft so much in vogue. 

Constable, the painter, used to complain of the bravura style 
of landscape, — the attempt to do something beyond truth, — and 
he defined the end of art to be the union of imagination with 
nature. This is equally true of literature. It is now faint praise 
to apply such epithets as "quiet," '-thoughtful," and "discrim- 
inating," to a book; but is it not the very nature of written 
thought and sentiment to address the contemplative and emotional 
34* 



402 THE LAY PREACnER. 

nature through the calm attention of the reader? Can we appre- 
oi;ito the merits even of a picture without a long and patient 
scrutiny; or enter into the significance of an author without 
abstracting the mind from bustle, excitement, and care? A 
receptive mood is as needful as an eloquent style. Paradise Lost 
was never intended to be read in a rail-car, nor the Life of Wash- 
ington to be written in the form of a melodrama. 

An author or reader whose taste was formed on the Addisonian 
or even the Johnsonian model, would be puzzled at the modifica- 
tions our vernacular has undergone. The introversion of phrases, 
the coining of words, the mystical expressions, the aphoristic 
and picturesque style adopted by recent and favorite writers, 
would strike the novice, as they do every reader of unperverted 
taste, as intolerable aifectations, or mere verbal inventions to con- 
ceal poverty of ideas. The more original a man's thought is, the 
more direct is its utterance. Genuine feeling seeks the most sim- 
ple expression. Just in proportion as what is said comes from the 
individual's own^mind and heart, is his manner of saying it natu- 
ral. Accordingly, the verbal ingenuity of many popular writers 
of the day is a presumptive evidence of their want of originality. 
Truth scorns disguise, and an author, as well as any other man, 
who is in earnest, relies upon his thought, and not its attire. The 
priceless merit of Addison is his fidelity to this law of simplicity 
and directness of language ; and those who cannot revert to 
his pages with satisfaction may justly suspect the decadence of 
their literary taste. The true lover of nature, when released 
a while from the crowd and turmoil of metropolitan life, rejoices, 
as he stands before a rural scene, to find his sense of natural 
beauty and his relish of calm retirement unimpaired by the pleas- 
ures and the business of the town. His mind expands, his heart 
is soothed, and his whole self-consciousness elevated, by the famil- 
iar and endeared, though long-neglected landscape. Thus is it 
with books. If we have remained true to the fountains of " Eng- 
lish undefiled" amid the glaring and spasmodic allurements of 
later authors, the tranquil tone, the clear diction, and the har- 
monized expression of Addison will afiect us like the permanent 
eifulgence of a star when the flashing curve of a rocket has gone 
out in darkness. There are in the style of writing, as well as in 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 403 

the economy of life, conservative principles ; and the return to 
these, after repeated experiments, is the best evidence of their 
value. Already a whole group of writers of English prose, whose 
books had an extraordinary sale and a fashionable repute, are 
quite neglected. When libraries are founded, or standard books 
desired, the intelligent purveyor ignores these specimens of gal- 
vanized literature, and chooses only writings that have a \dtal 
basis of fact or language. This quality is the absolute condition 
of the permanent popularity of books in our vernacular tongue. 
There is a certain honesty in its very structure which recoils from 
artifice as the presage of decay. The manliness, the truth, and 
the courage, of the Anglo-Saxon race, exact these traits in their 
literature. Coarseness such as deforms De Foe"s graphic stories, 
elaborate phrases like those that give an elephantine movement 
to Dr. Johnson's style, fanciful conceits such as occasionally 
dwarf the eloquence of Jeremy Taylor, are all defects that are 
referable to the age or the temperament of the respective authors, 
and do not, in the least, affect the reality of their ^ime, which 
rests on a sincere, original, and brave use of their mother tongue ; 
but when inferior minds attempt to perpetuate commonplace sen- 
timents or borrowed thoughts in a harlequin guise made up of 
shreds and patches of the English language, joined together by a 
foreign idiom, or a mosaic of new and unauthorized words, the 
experiment is repudiated, sooner or later, by the veto of instinctive 
good taste. 

Addison commenced writing when literature was mainly sus- 
tained by official patronage — in the age of witty coteries, of 
elegant dedications. Chiefly in political and scholarly circles 
were the votaries of letters to be found. The Spectator widened 
the range of literature, rendering it a domestic enjoyment and a 
social agency; it organized a lay priesthood, and gradually 
infused the elements of philosophy and taste into conversation. 
Although the Observator of L' Estrange, the Rehearsals of Leslie, 
and De Foe's Review, preceded the Tatler. those pioneer essays 
at periodical writing were mainly devoted to questions of the hour, 
and to the wants of the masses ; they did not, like the work w^hich 
Addison's pen made classic, deal with the minor morals, the 
refinements of criticism, and the niceties of human character. 



404 THE LAY PREACHER. 

No literary enterprise before achieved exerted so direct an influ- 
ence upon society, or induced the same degree of individual cul- 
ture. Its singular adaptation to the English mind is evinced not 
more by its immediate influence, than by the permanent form of 
instruction and entertainment it initiated. It was the prolific 
source of the invaluable array of publications which reached their 
acme of excellence in the best days of the Edinburgh Review and 
BlackAvoods Magazine, and which continue now, in the shape of 
Household Words, and of the choicest monthly and quarterly 
journals, to represent every school of opinion and class of society, 
and to illustrate and modify the ways of thinking and the style 
of expression of two great nations. No works have ever gone so 
near the sympathies of unprofessional readers, or reflected more 
truly the life and thought of successive eras ; none have enlisted 
such a variety of talent, or more genially tempered and enlight- 
ened the common mind. 

When the Spectator flourished, the stern inelegance of the 
Puritan era, and the profligate tone which succeeded it, yet lin- 
gered around the written thought of England ; while the French 
school represented by Congreve, the coarseness and spite of Swift, 
and the unsparing satire of Pope, frequently made literary talent 
the minister of unhallowed passions and depraved taste. To all 
this the pure and benign example of Addison was a delightful 
contrast. His _ censorship was tempered with good feeling, his 
expression untainted with vulgarity ; he was familiar, without 
losing refinement of tone ; he used language as a crystal medium 
to enshrine sense, and not as a grotesque costume to hide the 
want of it ; he w^as above the conceits of false wit, and too much 
of a Christian to profane his gifts ; in a word, he wrote like a 
gentleman and a scholar, and yet v^dthout the fine airs of the one 
'or the pedantry of the other. He first exposed the lesser incon- 
gruities of human conduct, which no law or theology had assailed; 
he discussed neglected subjects of value and interest ; and gave 
new zest to the common resources of daily life by placing them 
in an objective light. Then, too, by giving a colloquial tone to 
writing, he brought it within the range of universal sympathy, 
and made it a source of previously unimagined pleasure and 
instruction. 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 405 

Addison's relation to Steele was one of mutual advantage ; for, 
although the improvidence of " poor Dick " gave his virtuous 
friend constant anxiety, on the other hand, Sir Richard's easy 
temper and frank companionship lowered his classic Mentor from 
stilts, and promoted his access to their common readers. It is 
obvious that the social tone of the Spectator is as much owing to 
Steele as its grace and humor are to Addison. Indeed, their 
friendship, like those of Gray and Walpole, Johnson and Gold- 
smith, and, as a more recent instance, Wilkie and Haydon, was 
founded on diversity of character. Steele's vivacious tempera- 
ment and knowledge of the world supplied the author of Cato 
with the glow and aptitude he needed, while the latter' s high 
principle and rigid taste felicitously modified his companion's 
recklessness. If the one was a fine scholar, the other was a most 
agreeable gentleman ; if the one was correct, the other was genial; 
if the one had reliable taste, the other had noble impulses ; — so 
that between them there was a beautiful representative humanity. 
Macaulay attributes the execution which Addison levied on 
Steele's house to resentment at his ungrateful extravagance ; but 
the editor of the new edition, before noticed, justly modifies, in a 
note, the extreme language of the text. We think, with him, that 
Addison's severity, in this instance, was more apparent than real; 
for he declared that his object was to '* awaken him [Steele] from 
a lethargy which must end in his inevitable ruin." That no 
alienation occurred is evident from the preface that Steele wrote 
for his edition of " The Drummer," which is eloquent with love 
and admiration for his departed friend. 

In that delectable creation of Addison, Sir Roger de Coverley, 
we recognize, as it were, the first outline or cartoon of those 
studies of character which have since given their peculiar charm 
to English fictions and essays. In no other literature is discov- 
erable the combination of humor and good sense, of rare virtue 
and harmless eccentricities, which stamp the best of these produc- 
tions with an enduring interest. Before the advent of Sir Roger 
delicate shades of characterization had not been attempted, satire 
wns comparatively gross, and the excitement of adventure was the 
chief charm of narrative. But Addison drew, Avith a benignant 
yet keen touch, the foibles and the goodness of heart of his ideal 



406 THE LAYPREACIIER. 

country gentleman, and thus gave the precedent whereby the art 
of the moralist was refined and elevated. Compared, indeed, 
with subsequent heroes of romance, Sir Roger is a shadowy 
creature ; but none the less lovable for the simple role assigned 
him, and the negative part he enacts. He is the legitimate pre- 
cursor of Squire Western, Parson Adams, the Man of Feeling, 
and Pickwick. In the portrait gallery of popular English 
authors we gratefully hail Addison as the literary ancestor of 
Fielding; Sterne, Mackenzie, Lamb, Irving, and Dickens. The 
diversity of their style and the originality of their characters do 
not invalidate the succession, any more than Leonardo's clear 
outline and Raphael's inimitable expression repudiate the claims, 
as their artistic progenitors, of Giotto and Perugino. It is a curi- 
ous experiment, however, to turn from the brilliant characters 
which now people the domain of the novelist, and revert to this 
primitive figure, as fresh and true as when first revealed at the 
breakfast-tables of London in the reign of Queen Anne. Addison 
thus rescued the lineaments of the original English country gen- 
tleman, and kept them bright and genuine for the delight of 
posterity, ere their individuality was lost in the uniform traits of 
a locomotive age. It is surprising that features so delicately 
pictured, incidents so undramatic, and sentiments so free from 
extravagance, should thus survive intact. It is the nicety of the 
execution and the harmony of the character that preserve it. 
Walpole compares Sir Roger to FalstafF, doubtless with reference 
to the rare humor which stamps and immortalizes both, however 
diverse in other respects. 

We seem to know Sir Roger as a personal acquaintance, and an 
habitm of some manorial dwelling familiar to our school-days ; 
there is not a whim of his we can afford to lose, or a virtue we 
would ever cease to honor and love. His choice of a chaplain 
who would not insult him with Latin and Greek at his own table, 
and whose excellence as a preacher he secured by a present of 
" all the good sermons that had been printed : " his habit of pro- 
longing the psalm-tune a minute after the congregation were 
hushed, of always engaging on the Thames a bargeman with a 
wooden leg, of talking pleasantly all the way up stairs to the 
servant who ushered him into a drawing-room, of " clearing his 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 407 

pipes in good air " by a morning promenade in Graj's Inn Walks, 
of inquiring as to the strength of the axletree before trusting him- 
self in a hackney-coach, of standing up before the play to survey 
complacently the throng of happy faces, — these, and many other 
peculiarities, are to our consciousness like the endeared oddities 
of a friend, part of his identity, and associated with his memory. 
Gracefully into the web of Sir Roger's quaint manners did Addi- 
son weave a golden thread of sentiment. His relations to his 
household and tenants, his universal salutations in town, and his 
" thinking of the widow " in lapses of conversation, are natural 
touches in this delightful picture. We see him alight and take 
the spent hare in his arms at the close of a hunt, — shake the 
cicerone at the Abbey by the hand at parting, and invite him to 
his lodgings to "talk over these matters more at leisure," — chide 
an importunate beggar, and then give him a sixpence, — order 
the coachman to stop at a tobacconist's and treat himself to a 
roll of the best Virginia, — look reverently at Dr. Busby's statue 
because the famous pedagogue had whipped his grandfather. 
These anecdotes give reality to the conception. It would not be 
thoroughly English, however, without a dash of philosophy ; and 
we are almost reconciled to Sir Roger's ill-success in love with 
"one of those unaccountable creatures that secretly rejoice in the 
admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no further conse- 
quences," by its influence on his character. "This affliction in 
my lifCj" says Sir Roger, " has streaked all my conduct with a 
softness of which I should otherwise have been incapable." We 
envy the Spectator the privilege of taking this "fine old English 
gentleman" to the play, and enjoying his "natural criticism; " 
we honor Addison for his veto upon Steele's attempt to debauch 
this nobleman of nature, and deem it worthy of a poet to resolve 
upon his hero's final exit, rather than submit to so base an alter- 
native ; and we feel that it would have been quite impossible to 
listen, at the club, unmoved by the butler's epistle describing his 
tranquil departure, from the moment he ceased to be able " to 
touch a sirloin," until the slab of the Coverley vault closed over 
his remains. 

The zest of this favorite creation of Addison is increased by 
the remembrance we have of a tendency to more spirited life in 



408 THE LAY PREACHER. 

youth, when Sir Roger went all the way to Grand Cairo to take 
the measure of a pyramid, fought a duel, and kicked "Bully 
Dawson." This lively episode brings into strong relief the long 
years of quiet respectability, when his chief pastime was a game 
of backgammon with the chaplain, and lys architectural enthusi- 
asm was confined to admiration of London Bridge, and a bequest 
to build a steeple for <he village church. His habits are so well 
known to us, that, if we were to meet him in Soho Square, where 
he always lodged when in town, we should expect an invitation to 
take a glass of "Mrs. Trueby's water;" and, if the encounter 
occurred under those trees which shaded his favorite walk at Go- 
verley Hall, we should not feel even a momentary surprise to 
hear him instantly begin to talk of the widow. If Steele gave 
the first hint, and Tickell and Budgell contributed part of the 
outline, the soul of this character is alone due to Addison ; his 
delicate and true hand gave it color and expression, and therefore 
unity of efiect ; and it proved the model lay figure of subsequent 
didactic writers, upon which hang gracefully the mantles of char- 
ity and the robes of practical wisdom. Sir Roger in the country, 
at the club, the theatre, or at church, in love, and on the bench, 
w^as the herald of that swarm of heroes whose- situations are made 
to illustrate the varied circles of society and aspects of life in 
modern fiction. 

It was in the form and relations of literature, however, that Ad- 
dison chiefly wrought great improvement ; and there is reason for 
the comparative want of interest which his writings excite at the 
present day, when we pass from the amenities of style to the 
claims of humanity and of truth. A more profound element lurked 
in popular writing than the chaste essayist of Queen Anne's day 
imagined ; and since the climax of social and political life realized 
by the French revolution, questions of greater moment than the 
speculations of a convivial club, a significance in human existence 
deeper than the amiable Avhims of a country gentleman, and 
phases of society infinitely higher than those involved in criticism 
on points of manners and taste, have become subjects of popular 
thought and discussion. Accordingly, there is more earnestness 
and a greater scope in periodical literature. Minds of a lofty 
order, sympathies of a deep and philosophic nature, have been 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 409 

enlisted in this sphere. Carljle, Stephens, Foster, and De Quin- 
cej, have given it a new character. The copious knowledge and 
eloquent diction of Macaulaj, the rich common-sense and ready 
wit of Sydney Smith, the brilliant analysis of Jeffrey, the subtile 
critiques of Hazlitt and Lamb, the exuberant zest of Wilson and 
a host of other writers, have rendered the casual topics and every- 
day characters of which the Spectator often treats unimpressive 
in the comparison. It is therefore mainly as a reformer of style, 
and as the benevolent and ingenious pioneer of a new and most 
influential class of writers, that we now honor Addison. 

It was at first his intention to enter the clerical profession ; 
but all of aptitude for that office he possessed found scope and 
emphasis in his literary career. He ministered effectually at the 
altar of humanity, not indeed to its deepest wants, but most sea- 
sonably, and with rare success. The license and brutality of 
temper were checked by his kindly censure and pure example ; 
the latent beauties of works of genius were made evident to the 
general perception; manners were refined, taste promoted, the 
religious sentiment twined into the daily web of popular litera- 
ture ; while spleen, artifice, vulgarity, and self-love, were rebuked 
by a corps of lay preachers, whose lectures were more influential, 
because conveyed under the guise of colloquial and friendly hints 
rather than sermons. Addison gave to literature a respectability 
which it seldom possessed before. He became the ideal of an 
author. His studies, observation, and benevolence, were turned 
into a fountain of usefulness and entertainment open to the mul- 
titude. He helped to dig the channel which connects the stream 
of private kcowledge with the popular mind, across the isthmus 
of an aristocracy of birth, of education, and of society ; thus cre- 
ating the grand distinction between the Anglo-Saxon and the 
Southern European nations, as to intelligence, activity, and the 
capacity of self-government. It is in this historical point of view, 
and as related to the improvement of society and the amelioration 
of literature, that Addison deserves gratitude and respect. He 
was not a profound original thinker ; he did not battle for great 
truths; timid, modest, yet gifted and graceful, his mission was 
conservative and humane, rather than bold and creative; yet it 
was adapted to the times and fraught with blessings. 
35 



410 THE LAY PREACHER. 

Addison, therefore, illustrates the amenities, and not the hero- 
ism, of literature. The almost feminine grace of his mind was 
unfavorable to its hardihood and enterprise. Both his virtues 
and his failings partook of the same character ; kindliness, pru- 
dence, and serenity, rather than courage and generosity, kept 
him from moral evil, and won for him confidence and love. He 
was reserved, except 'when under the influence of intimate com- 
panions, or "thawed by wine;" could ill bear rivalry or inter- 
ference, and even when consulted, would only '-hint a fault and 
hesitate dislike ; " and thus in letters and in life he occupied that 
safe and pleasant table-land unvexed by the storms that invade 
mountain heights and craggy sea-shore. Such a man, at subse- 
quent and more agitated epochs in the history of English litera- 
ture, would have made but little impression upon the thought of 
the age ; but, in his times, an example of self-respect and gentle- 
ness, of refinement and Christian sentiment in authorship, had a 
peculiar value. There are two excellences which have chiefly 
preserved his influence, — his rare humor, and the peculiar adapt- 
ation of his style to periodical literature. Lamb traces the latter, 
in a degree, to Sir William Temple : but Addison declared that 
Tillotson was his model. The description of Johnson is charac- 
teristic and just : "He is never feeble, and he did not wish to be 
energetic ; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates ; his sen- 
tences have neither studied amplitude nor affected brevity ; his 
periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy." It 
is, however, the colloquial tone, fusing these qualities into an har- 
monious whole, that renders Addison's style at once popular and 
classic. His conversation was not less admirable than his writing; 
and when we consider how large a portion of time was given by 
the English authors of that day to companionship and talk, we 
can easily imagine how much the habit influenced their pen-craft. 
Both the humor and the colloquialism of the Spectator were fos- 
tered by social agencies. Addison, says Swift, gave the first 
example of the proper use of wit ; and, as an instance, he remarks, 
"it was his practice, when he found any man invincibly wrong, 
to flatter his opinions by acquiescence, and sink them yet deeper 
into absurdity." 

Even partisan spite could ascribe to Addison no greater faults 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 411 

than fastidiousness, dogmatism, and conviviality ; and for these 
circumstances afford great excuse. The oracle, as he was, of a 
club, referred to as the arbiter of literary taste, conscious of supe- 
rior tact and elegance in the use of language, and impelled by 
domestic unhappiness to resort to a tavern, we can easily make 
allowance for the dictatorial opinions and the occasional jollity of 
" the great Mr. Addison; " and when we compare him with the 
scurrilous and dissipated writers of his day, he becomes almost a 
miracle of excellence. There was in his character, as in his writ- 
ings, a singular evenness. In politics a moderate Whig, prudent^ 
timid, and somewhat cold in temperament, his kindliness of heart 
and religious principles, his wit and knowledge, saved from merely 
negative goodness both the man and the author. Yet a neutral 
tint, a calm tone, a repugnance to excess in style, in manners, and 
in opinion, were his characteristics. He lacked emphasis and fire ; 
but their absence is fully compensated by grace, truth, and seren- 
ity. It is not only among the mountains and by the sea-shore 
that Nature hoards her beauty, but also on meadow-slopes and 
around sequestered lakes ; and in like manner human life and 
thought have their phases of tranquil attraction and genial repose, 
as well as of sublime and impassioned development. 



THE AMERICAN STATESMAN 

GOVERNEUR MORRIS. 



There is an efficiency of character which, like the latent 
forces of nature, is made visible only bj its results. It collects 
with the quietude of the electric fluid, and is silently diffused 
again or rapidly discharged, with no lingering traces of its ener- 
gies but such as thoughtful observation reveals. Unlike the 
author or the artist, men thus endowed build up no permanent 
memorial of their renown, no distinctive and characteristic result 
of their lives, like a statue or a poem ; neither are their names 
always associated with a great event or sacred occasion, like those 
which embalm the warrior's fame. Having more self-respect than 
desire of glory, their great object is immediate utility ; their 
thought and action blend with and often direct the current of 
events, but with an unostentatious power that conceals their 
agency. As the dew condenses and the snow-flakes are woven, 
as the frost colors and the night-breeze strips the forest, they 
accomplish great changes in human affairs, and exert a wide and 
potent sway, without any parade of means, and by a process that 
challenges no recognition. It is only when we attentively mark 
the effect and consider the method, that we realize, in such 
instances, what may be called the genius of character. 

The esseirtial difference between this species of greatness and 
that which is tangibly embodied is to be traced to the fact that 
in the former direct • utility, and in the latter abstract taste, is 
consulted ; a sense of truth, of right, of efficiency, is the inspi- 



GOVERNEUR MORRIS. 413 

ration of the one, and a sense of beauty of the other. The 
superiority that is wholly intellectual or moral, when developed 
in action, and to meet the exigencies of society, incarnates itself 
too widely, sends forth too liberal ideas, and is too variously 
active, to provide for its own glory. There is an essential disin- 
terestedness in the position and spirit of such greatness. Uncon- 
scious of self, absorbed in broad views, and as zealous in public 
spirit as ordinary men are in private interest, this rare and noble 
class of beings exercise a genial super\dsion and providential 
wisdom, with a dignity, confidence, and good faith, that as clearly 
designate them to be legitimate counsellors in national affiiirs, as 
the appearance of a great epic shows the advent of a poet, or the 
spontaneous apotheosis of a hero indicates the ordained leader. 
The American Revolution elicited a wonderful degree of this 
species of character. To its prevalence, at that epoch, has been 
justly ascribed the ultimate success of the experiment ; for all 
the valor displayed in the camp would have been inadequate had 
it not been sustained by equal wisdom and firmness in the coun- 
cil. The mind of the country was enlisted in the struggle not 
less than its bone and muscle ; and moral kept alive physical 
courage. The undismayed spirit of the people was, in a great 
measure, owing to a sublime trust in the integrity and intelligence 
of their leaders ; and these qualities were sometimes embodied in 
an unambitious, devoted activity, more versatile, responsible, and 
unpromising, than ever before engaged the gifted spirits of a 
nation. The services thus rendered were often utterly devoid of 
any scope for distinction. They seldom gave any vantage-ground 
to the desire for brilliant results, and were often barren even of 
the excitement of adventure. They were grave, matter-of-fact, 
and discouraging toils, involving more personal discomfort than 
peril, demanding more prudence than zeal, and more patience 
than ingenuity ; and yet essential to the great end in view, the 
prospect and hope of which were their exclusive motive. To this 
kind of fidelity the triumph of American principles is to be 
ascribed ; and. instead of seekinof their orimn in men of extraor- 
(linary genius, we must look for them to the philosophy of 
character. 

Few xA.merican civilians offer so noble an example as Governeur 
35* 



414 THE AMERICAN STATESMAN. 

Morris. One of his ancestors is said to have been distinguished 
as a leader in Cromwell's army. Weary of military life, he em- 
barked for the West Indies, and thence came to New York, where 
he purchased three thousand acres of land with manorial privi- 
leges in the vicinity of Haerlem, an estate still known as 
Morrissiana. The descendants of this colonist took an active part 
in public affairs. A vein of eccentricity, often the accompaniment 
of originality of mind and independence of spirit, seems to have 
always marked the family. 

Governeur Morris was born on the paternal domain, January 
31, 1752. His boyhood was devoted to rambling over his father's 
extensive farm, and he then indulged a taste for rural freedom and 
enjoyment, to which he returned in later years with undiminished 
zest and entire contentment. He was placed, when quite young, 
with a French teacher at New Rochelle, and thus acquired the 
facility in that language which proved so useful to him during 
his long residence in France. His college life was unusually 
brilliant, chiefly on account of the rhetorical ability to which it 
gave scope and impulse : and he was eminent for his attainments 
in Latin and mathematics. Graduating with honor at a very early 
age, he entered with zeal upon the study of law, and was just 
rising to professional distinction when the diffi ulties between 
Great Britain and her American colonies broke out. He was 
soon deeply involved in the responsible toils of the Revolution ; 
subsequently removed to Philadelphia, and successfully practised 
al the bar ; went abroad, and was appointed minister to France ; 
travelled extensively after being freed from official duties, and 
returned home to close his honorable and useful career in the 
home of his childhood. Such is an external outline of the life 
of Governeur Morris ; but the details abound with facts seldom 
equalled in interest and value, in the merely civic life of a repub- 
lican. As a legislator, financier, political essayist, ambassador, 
orator, and private gentleman, Governeur Morris cooperated 
with the leading spirits of a revolutionary age rich in eminent 
characters ; greatly influence^ the councils which ruled the des- 
tinies of an infant nation : grappled, with bold intelligence, the 
chaotic but pregnant elements of society and government ; set a 
noble example of integrity and candor as an ally and a patriot ; 



GOVERNEUR MORRIS. 415 

and infused a philosophic spirit and an efficient wisdom into every 
interest and sphere with which he came in contact. 

His life was a scene of versatile activity. He carried on his 
law practice, congressional duties, secret embassies, and extensive 
correspondence, ^ith assiduity, during the whole American war ; 
while abroad, he engaged in large mercantile speculations, prose- 
cuted private claims, was an habltui of the best society, and 
faithfully discharged absorbing diplomatic obligations. 

His diary in France, a collection of hasty data, evinces an 
uninterrupted and efficient activity, calling for the constant exer- 
cise of sagacity, wisdom, and reflection ; while he used to declare 
that the multiplicity of his duties at home, during the seven years 
succeeding the Declaration of Independence, notwithstanding 
habits of method and application, prevented his keeping any notes 
of his own remarkable experience. 

The American traveller in Europe is struck with the fre- 
quency of inscriptions, on public works, announcing the prince or 
pontiiF to whose benevolent zeal any local improvement is attrib- 
utable. To perpetuate, in every manner, the memory of national 
benefactors, is one of the conservative features of hereditary rule. 
With us it is quite otherwise. The process of national growth 
seems to go on, in republics, like the development of nature ; a 
constant alternation of forces, each destined to be absorbed in the 
other ; the deeds of one generation to fertilize the arena of the 
next ; and the future to be so exclusively contemplated as to shut 
out of view the past. It is on this account that literature should 
attest departed worth, with authentic and careful emphasis, in a 
republic ; and especially strive to do justice to those unpretend- 
ing yet essential merits which result from character rather than 
genius, and, like the strains of great vocalists, leave no record but 
that which lingers in the souls they have warmed and exalted. 
A brief synopsis of the public life of Governeur Morris will gite 
but an inadequate idea of its utility ; but it may serve to illus- 
trate its scope and aim. At the age of eighteen he began to 
enlighten the minds of his countrymen on a subject of vital 
moment to their interests, but in regard to which their provincial 
experience had afforded them little insight. Political economy 
was then a science in embryo, and finance a branch very imper- 



416 THE AMERICAN STATESMAN. 

fectly understood ; questions relating to the principles of trade, 
debt and credit, exchange, and a circulating medium, were rife 
in the different states, -when the adventurous stripling astonished 
his elders by the original views, the acute reasoning, and the 
thorough knowledge, with which he discussed them in the jour- 
nals of the day. These, and subsequent financial essays, both 
instructed and influenced public sentiment, and prepared the way 
for whatever liberal and enlightened policy on this and kindred 
subjects was adopted. 

The reputation of Governeur Morris, by these precocious writ- 
ings, and several eloquent pleas to juries, was thus very early 
established in the colony. He was accordingly chosen a member 
of the first Provincial Congress ; and regularly afterwards took 
his seat in the various assemblies there originated, under the names 
of Convention, Committee of Safety, and Congress, until he was 
duly elected to the Continental Congress. In these bodies his 
abilities were continually tasked, as a parliamentary orator, a pri- 
vate counsellor, and an efl&cient agent. He passed the hours be- 
tween eleven and three in-the House, despatched, at intervals, his 
professional affairs, and transacted the business of three committees 
of which he was chairman — those on the commissary, quarter- 
master's, and medical departments of the army, which was in a con- 
dition that rendered these duties of the most onerous description. 

When the committees of correspondence were formed, he was 
appointed to Westchester county, and the gallant Montgomery to 
Dutchess. He devised a feasible and judicious plan to defray the 
expenses of the war, when the plan that he proposed for a reconcilia- 
tion with England proved abortive. When the commander-in-chief 
approached, on his way to join the army at the north, Governeur 
Morris was one of those appointed to meet him at Newark, and 
there commenced the mutual esteem and entire confidence between 
them that never diminished. His speech in favor of independence, 
in the first Congress, was as remarkable for logical force as that 
of Patrick Henry for rhetorical fire. He was soon after sent on 
a mission to the Congress assembled at Philadelphia, appointed a 
commissioner to organize the new government, and sent to confer 
with General Schuyler, at Fort Edward, '"'on the means to be 
used by the state in aid of his plans of defence or resistance." 



GOVERNEUR MORRIS. 417 

We next find him a delegate to Massachusetts in a convention 
to arrange '' currency and prices;" a mission which was pre- 
cluded bj a more peremptory call to Washington's head-quarters. 
He was one of the five delegateSj elected on the dissolution of 
the New York convention that formed the constitution of 
the state, to represent her in the mean time. In that terrible 
crisis when the army was encamped at Valley Forge, and all 
was confusion, foreboding, and privation, Governeur Morris was 
chosen as the bearer of encouragement and counsel to the army, 
and proved a most judicious and acceptable coadjutor with his 
beloved chief, in reducing it to something like order and comfort. 
His pen was then employed to draw up instructions to General 
Gates, and an account of the existent state of public affairs for 
the use of Congress. 

His views on the appointment of foreigners to military office, 
on providing for the army, and other exigencies of the times, are 
impressively unfolded in his correspondence with Washington. 
He drafted an able and timely address to the American people on 
the prosperous crisis attending the French alliance ; and wrote, 
for Dr. Franklin to lay before the French ministry, " Observa- 
tions on the Finances of America." In February, 1779, we 
find him chairman of the committee "to consider the despatches 
from the American Commissioners abroad, and communications 
from the French minister in the United States " — " in its char- 
acter and consequences," it has been said, "perhaps the most 
important during the war." In 1780, during the great fiscal 
depression, he published, in a Philadelphia journal, a series of 
methodical, condensed, and intelligent papers on the subject of 
continental currency and finance, and was soon after appointed 
assistant-financier to Robert Morris. With General Knox, he 
was delegated by Washington to consult with the agents of Sir 
Henry Clinton on an exchange of prisoners. He corresponded 
with the French minister on the trade with the West. Indies, and 
induced desirable modifications of our commercial treaties. 

While residing at the French capital, and mingling with more 
curiosity than sympathy in its social circles, he was appointed by 
Washington a Commissioner to England. Although his ill-success 
in effecting any immediate arrangement of the pending difficul- 



418 THE AMERICAN STATESMAN. 

ties has been ascribed to the abrupt manner ^vhich characterized 
his interviews with Pitt and the Duke of Leeds, and also to a 
breach of diplomatic courtesy, to which a high sense of honor 
impelled him, in communicating to the French minister, then res- 
ident in London, the terms of the proposed treaty ; it seems, on 
the other hand, to be generally conceded that the policy of the 
English government, at this epoch, was delay, in order to await 
the issue of the continental troubles before making definite terms 
with the United States. On his return to Paris, Governeur Mor- 
ris received intelligence of his appointment as minister to France. 
He held the office at a terrible political crisis, discharged its 
varied duties with eminent fidelity, and, although restrained, by 
the delicacy of his position, from taking an active part in the 
affairs of the kingdom, he exercised a brave humanity in sheltering 
refugees, preserving the funds of the royal family, and transmit- 
ting them to the exiles, using every available means to obtain the 
liberation of Lafayette, securing the lives and property of his 
own countrymen, and maintaining the dignity of the nation he 
represented. 

The interval between his retirement from this office and his 
return home was passed in visiting Switzerland, Germany, and 
other parts of Europe. During this tour his observant mind was 
constantly engaged — not, however, upon the objects that usually 
attract cultivated travellers from America ; for art and antiquity 
his taste was not so evident as for those aspects and interests of 
national life which he esteemed of more practical importance. 
He collected information on political and commercial topics, and 
in regard to manufactures and agriculture. Society, however, 
was his chosen field, and conversation his favorite resource — 
"the dumb circle round a card-table" being his aversion. In 
Vienna, Berlin, and other capitals, he seems to have been 
regarded from two entirely opposite points of view — the bold- 
ness and originality of his thoughts, and the manner of expressing 
them, giving offence to some, and delight to others. His return 
home, after a wearisome voyage, was cordially welcomed. He 
immediately rebuilt the old homestead, and adorned his ancestral 
domain ; was elected to Congress, where his speeches on the 
Louisiana question, and other topics of the day, several orations 



GOVEHNEUR MORRIS. 419 

delivered in New York, and his successful advocacy of the Erie 
Canal, attest the continuance of his public spirit. Occasional 
journeys, an extensive correspondence, the care of his estate, 
and a liberal hospitality, agreeably diversified the remainder of 
his life. 

The foresio^ht which seems so natural to enlaro;ed views was a 
prominent trait in Governeur Morris. His opinions were not the 
sudden oonjectures of a heated fancy, nor the daring speculations 
of an undisciplined intellect. He looked calmly on a question, 
espoused a cause with his judgment not less than with his heart, 
and, having done so, knew how to abide the issue with tranquil 
manliness. There was nothing fanatical in his sentiments ; they 
were generous, bold, and ardent ; but they were also well-con- 
sidered, reliable, and modified by reason and experience. Accord- 
ingly, he looked beyond the limits of party, and disdained the 
cant of faction ; on broad, solid, and elevated ground he loved to 
stand and survey his country and the world. To his mental 
vision, therefore, "coming events cast their shadows before;" 
for his gaze was not absorbed in the details of adjacent life, but 
ranged far and wide, quickened by a spirit of enlightened curios- 
ity, and genuine patriotic sympathies. 

Many instances might be cited of the prescience of Governeur 
Morris. His consistent faith in the measures of Washington, 
and the intelligent support he uniformly yielded him, under all 
circumstances, was the instinctive adherence of a kindred spirit. 
Before the Revolution broke out he saw the natural unity of the 
American States, and advocated a plan for "uniting the whole 
continent in one grand legislature." At the very outset of the 
French Revolution, he anticipated the course of the people, and 
justly defined the true policy of the court. His letter to Lafay- 
ette distinctly presages the result to which he was unconsciously 
advancing, and breathes the genuine counsel of enlightened afiec- 
tion. One of the first to perceive the necessity of active inter- 
course between the seaboard and the interior of America, he 
broached in conversation the idea of the Erie Canal at a time 
when it was deemed chimerical, steadfastly advocated the project, 
and greatly contributed to its achievement. The broad avenues 
which now intersect the metropolis of New York, and constitute 



420 THE AMERICAN STATESMAN. 

its redeeming feature, were first successfully advocated by Gov- 
erneur Morris. 

At a period when the municipal authorities proposed to save 
the expense of a marble facing to the back of the City Hall, on 
the ground that it would never be seen except from the suburbs, 
unmoved by the sneers of narrow-minded incredulity, he urged 
that the city should be laid out as far as Ilaerlem. The present 
American coinage is based upon his plan, although modified from 
the orio-inal scheme : and he oricrinated the first bank in the 
country, upon principles the utility of which experience has amply 
proved. Instead of dating American liberty from the Stamp Act, 
he traced it to the prosecution of Peter Zenger, a printer in the 
colony of New York, for an alleged libel : because that event 
revealed the philosophy of freedom, both of thought and speech, 
as an inborn human right, so nobly set forth in Milton's treatise 
on " Unlicensed Printing." He derived the superiority of Amer- 
ican nautical architecture from the Indian canoe — ' ' its slender 
and elegant form, its rapid movement, its capacity to bear burdens 
and resist the rage of the billows and torrents." His criticism on 
his own portrait was sagacious : " The head is good," he remarked, 
" but the hands and face tell a different story y It was this 
habitual reversion to first principles, this testing of every question 
by the dictates of his own understanding, rather than by the 
watchwords of prejudice, that marked Governeur Morris as a 
superior man even in an age of great and active intelligence. He 
was a philosopher rather than a politician. 

Averse to the separation of the colonies, except on the principle 
of self-preservation, he was among the most able champions of 
conciliatory measures; but, when they proved ineifectual, he 
engaged with all his mind and will in the struggle for independ- 
ence — at an almost entire sacrifice of private interest and feeling, 
being unsustained by his family and some of his earliest friends- 
Yet he was no undiscriminating republican. In the habits, char- 
acter, and prospects, of his own countrymen, he recognized a 
natural aptitude for the form of government under which they 
have so greatly advanced and prospered ; but in France the case 
presented itself to his mind in quite a different light: there he 
told Lafayette, with proplietic wisdom, that he was " opposed to 



GO VEEN EUR MORRIS. 421 

democracy from regard to liberty." Upon the same conviction, 
that the welfare of France was most secure under legitimate 
monarchical rule, were founded the sentiments of his oration on 
the return of the Bourbons, yet memorable in New York for the 
offence it gave to many of his fellow-citizens, and the bold elo- 
quence it developed in the orator. He was equally misjudged 
for maintaining the expediency of consolidating the public debts 
after the war — a measure regarded with a jealous eye by the 
ardent upholders of state rights, but one espoused by Governeur 
Morris, forithe sake of the more liberal and wise policy of com- 
bining their interests and fostering the new-born and unconfirmed 
national sentiment. Thus, in all contingencies, he anticipated 
the future greatness of the country to whose welfare the flower 
of his youth was devoted. He saw the majestic tree in the swell- 
ing germ. 

It was the habit of his mind to elicit the universal from the 
special, and to seize on the central idea and essential principles, 
instead of occupying himself with the incidental and temporary. 
Thus, when the charges against Silas Deane were discussed in 
Congress, upon the authority of Thomas Paine, Governeur Morris 
argued for the latter' s removal from his office, on the ground that 
the honor due to the nation's ally was involved, while the incum- 
bent had no social or personal claims, but was an adventurer. 
This was a statement of the case as it would appear to a Euro- 
pean spectator, at a time when few in our country's councils had 
the perspicacity to take such a view. Personal ill-will, growing 
out of a newspaper controversy, has, indeed, been charged upon 
the legislator in this instance ; but this does not correspond with 
the efforts he subsequently made in France for Paine's liberation, 
when the letter was far more degraded, and in peril of his life. 

Although, as we have seen, the views of Governeur Morris 
were comprehensive, they were also eminently practical. He 
was one of those efficient philosophers who understand the actual 
worth of abstract truth, and know intuitively how far it can be 
applied to human affairs with utility and satisfaction. In our 
day there has been exhibited a mischievous fanaticism which 
advocates the realization of what is abstractly right and true, 
without any regard to existent circum "inces. Similar principles, 
36 



422 THE AMERICAN STATESMAN. 

carried out hy violencej occasioned the most dreadful results of 
the French Revolution : and there are always disciples enough of 
any doctrine, the espousal of which secures notoriety, however 
obviously detrimental it may be to the welfare of humanity, and 
the permanent interests of liberty or truth. The practical wisdom 
of Governeur Morris was early manifested in his financial essays, 
and appears conspicuously in his revolutionary writings and 
speeches ; it induced him to warn Lafayette of Mirabeau, to sug- 
gest the basis of a popular constitution to Louis, and to cooperate 
with Clinton in his grand plans of internal improv^ent, upon 
which rest the prosperity of their native state. Time has proved 
the feasibility of his large practical conceptions, political and 
commercial. His genius for affairs has seldom been surpassed, 
and its evidences are yet apparent, though comparatively unac- 
knowledged. 

With this breadth of purpose and fertility of thought, there, 
however, blended a peremptory manner, which sometimes led 
Governeur Morris to check garrulity with a lofty impatience, and 
also imparted a somewhat dictatorial tone to his intercourse. ^ With 
his frankness, too, there was united a certain love of discipline 
and courtly dignity, that were not always pleasing to the ultra 
democratic among his countrymen. With the local prejudice and 
social conformity of New England he had no sympathy, but 
seems to have inherited the dislike of Yankee customs and modes 
of feeling, which induced his father to prohibit his children, by 
will, a New England education. The elements of humanity were 
liberally dispensed to him. He did not live exclusively in his 
intellect and public spirit ; but was a genuine lover of ease and 
pleasure, had a natural taste for elegance and luxury, and knew 
how to enjoy as well as how to work. Throughout, the most 
active part of his life, however, he never allowed the one function 
to infringe upon the other. 

It has been justly said of him that " he never shrunk from 
any task, and never commenced one which he left unfinished." 
Indeed, his faculty consisted mainly in a rare power of concentra- 
tion. He could converge the light of his mind and the force of 
his emotions, at will ; and, therefore, whether business or pleasure 
enlisted him, the result was never equivocal. His moral power 



GOVERNEUR MORRIS. 423 

was integrity : he was direct, open, sincere, a thorough, uncom- 
promising, and zealous devotee of truth in philosophy, social 
relations, and life. Hence his courage, self-respect, and sim- 
plicity, rendering him altogether a fine specimen of a republican 
gentleman. His commanding figure, expressive features, and 
strong, emphatic articulation, ' combined as they were with 
superior intellectual gifts, justity Madame de Stael's remark to 
him : '"'■Monsieur^ vous avez I'air tres iwposanty 

He was equally at home when absorbed in abstruse inquiries 
and conviviality, amusement and study, utility and agreeable- 
ness ; and possessed that completeness of nature which is essen- 
tial to manhood. His generosity was evinced in numerous and 
unostentatious services to the unfortunate ; and his letter to a 
Tory friend, who desired to return to America, breathes the 
true spirit of magnanimity. He drafted the Constitution of 
the United States. Never being solicitous for the credit due 
to his patriotic labors, many services are claimed in his behalf, 
by his friends, which nominally belong to those with whom 
he was associated in public life. He often expressed the convic- 
tion that his own mind was more indebted for lucid and reliable 
principles of judgment and action to Robert H. Morris than to 
any other friend. Having married a niece of John Randolph, 
the latter was often his guest, and the keen encounters which 
would naturally occur between two such emphatic yet opposite 
characters may readily be imagined. 

The manner in which his marriage occurred is an instance (\f 
that eccentricity to which we have alluded as indicating the orig- 
inality and independence which marked his private not less than 
his public life. He had invited a large number of his relatives 
to a Christmas dinner, and, having greeted them all with his 
usual hospitality, left the room, and soon returned with his 
intended bride, and a clergyman who instantly performed the 
marriage ceremony, to the astonishment of all the guests, and the 
disappointment of those among them who expected to inherit the 
estate. 

His behavior when the accident occurred by which he lost his 
leg was equally characteristic. While in attendance upon Con- 
gress, in Philadelphia, his horses having taken fright in conse- 



424 THE STATESMAN. 

quence of some disturbance in the street, he was thrown from his 
phaeton, and so severely injured in the knee-joint, that amputa- 
tion of the lower limb was deemed necessary. He conversed not 
only with calmness but with humor over his misfortune : and told 
the experienced surgeons that they had already sufficient reputa- 
tion, and he preferred giving the operation to a young medical 
friend, that he might have the credit of it to advance his prac- 
tice. When abroad he tried several very artistic substitutes for 
his lost member ; but, naturally impatient of deception, even in 
costume, he continued to use a stump attached to the fractured 
leg, and managed to accommodate his locomotion to this incon- 
venience without in the least impairing the dignity of his move- 
ments. Indeed, it served him an excellent purpose on one occa- 
sion, for the cry of " Aristocrat ! " being raised against him in 
the streets of Paris, for appearing in his carriage, when no such 
vehicles were allowed by the mob, he was surrounded by a blood- 
thirsty crowd, who threatened his life : but he coolly thrust his 
wooden leg out of the window, and cried out, "An aristocrat? 
Yes ; who lost his limb in the cause of American liberty ! " The 
reaction was instantaneous ; he was not only allowed to proceed, 
but vehemently cheered on his way. 

He had an old-fashioned but impressive manner of expressing 
himself, which, though at this day it might be considered some- 
what ostentatious, accorded with the large canes and buttons, the 
broad-skirted coats and stately air, in vogue when Copley's por- 
traits truly represented the style of character and taste in di-ess 
that prevailed. A genuine Knickerbocker, in whose now ripe 
memory Governeur Morris is the ideal of an American civilian, 
imitates with great effect the tone, at once significant and digni- 
fied, with which he asked a pretentious literary aspirant, who 
apologized for being late at dinner by stating that he had been 
engaged in forming a philosophical society, " Pray, where are 
your philosophers?" and his reply to a friend who asked his son, 
then a boy of four years old, if he had yet read Robinson Crusoe 
and Jack the Giant Killer, "Tell the gentleman, no: but that 
you are acquainted with the lives of Gustavus Adolphus, and 
Charles of Sweden,— the Twelfth." 
( There was a vein of what has been called Johnsonese in the 



GOVERNEUR MORRIS. 425 

rhetoric of Governeur Morris, but it was underlaid by so much 
strong natural sense, and, in his deliberate efforts, vivified by such 
true enthusiasm, that it seemed quite appropriate to the man. 
He had all the requisites to sustain daring oratory. With a taste 
formed chiefly upon the French pulpit eloquence in its palmy 
days, his indulgence in personification, as when he invoked the 
shade of Penn in a speech in Philadelphia, and especially in 
the apostrophes of his funeral orations, in a man of less natural 
dignity and impressiveness would have been in imminent danger 
of gliding from the sublime to the ridiculous ; but there was a 
singular unity of effect in the elocution of Governeur Morris. 
Intelligent crowds hung in silent admiration upon his eloquence ; 
and servants stopped open-mouthed, dish in hand, to catch his 
table-talk. His social privileges were not less rich than various ; 
and he enjoyed the signal advantages of that companionship with 
superior natures which is quickened and sustained by mutual 
duties and genuine intellectual sympathy. It was his rare for- 
tune to be intimate with the leading spirits Of two nations, at 
epochs of social and political convulsions which brought to the 
surface and into action the gifts and graces, as well as the pas- 
sions, of huD^anity. i^t home the esteemed associate of Schuyler, 
Greene, and the other brave 'chiefs of the army ; of Hamilton, 
Clinton, and all the eminent civic leaders of his time ; the cor- 
respondent of public characters, embracing every species of dis- 
tinction, from that of Paul Jones to that of Thomas Jefferson ; 
and abroad, on terms of the frankest intercourse with Necker and 
his gifted daughter, Marmontel and the family of Orleans, — he 
had the best opportunity to estimate the comparative benefits of 
fortune, rank, genius, society, form of government, modes of life, 
and principles of nature. 

His relation to Washington was of a kind that affords the 
best evidence, of his worth. Their correspondence evidences the 
highest degree of mutual respect and confidence ; their views on 
public affairs are developed with an intelligent frankness and 
unanimity of sentiment pleasing to contemplate ; while the 
geniality of friendship incidentally appears in the "pigs and 
poultry" sent from Morrissiana to Mount Yernon ; the commis- 
sion Washington gave his former counsellor to purchase him a 
36* 



426 THE STATESMAN. 

watch ; and the candid letter of advice he wrote him on his 
appointment as minister to France. There was something khi- 
dred in the tone of both, however dissimilar in their endowments 
and career ; and in form so much were they alike that Governeur 
Morris, when in Paris, stood for the figure of Houdon's statue of 
Washington. Notwithstanding the florid style of portions of the 
eulogy delivered on his beloved chief at the public funeral in 
New York, Governeur Morris drew his character with great dis- 
crimination. 

It is said that at a convivial party to which Washington was 
invited, his remarkable traits were the subject of earnest discus- 
sion among the company ; and it was insisted that no one, how- 
ever intimate, would dare to take a liberty with him. In a fool- 
ish moment of elation Governeur Morris accepted a bet that he 
would venture upon the experiment. Accordingly, just before 
dinner was announced, as the guests stood in a group by the fire, 
he induced a somewhat lively chat, and in the midst of it, appar- 
ently from a casual impulse, clapped Washington familiarly on 
the shoulder. The latter turned and gave him a look of such 
mild and dignified yet grieved surprise, that even the self- 
possession of his friend deserted him. He shrunk from that gaze 
of astonishment at his forgetfulness. of respect ; and the mirth of 
the company was instantly awed into silence. It is curious, with 
this scene fresh in mind, to revert to a passage in the eulogy to 
which we have referred : " You all have felt the reverence he 
inspired ; it was such that to command seemed in him but the 
exercise of an ordinary function, while others felt that a duty to 
obey — anterior to the injunctions of civil ordinance or the com- 
pulsions of a military code — was imposed by the high behests 
of nature." 

The quality which all history shows to be the basis of charac- 
ter is self-reliance. United with generosity and remarkable 
intelligence, this trait gives directness, force, and authority, to 
the manner, word, and thought. We trace to this combination 
much of the energy of Governeur Morris, and not a little of his 
social influence. Although, at times, his confidence in his own 
opinion and moods degenerated into complacency, and even offen- 
sive dogmatism, these were the extreme phases of an invaluable 



GOVERNEUR MORRIS. 427 

quality. The very same trust in his own resources and the 
deliberate convictions of his understanding, in the hour of earnest 
and momentous discussion, gave a profound emphasis to his dis- 
course, that won his audience ; and, in the hour of baffled endeavor 
and mortified hope, enabled him to impart vital encouragement 
to the desponding adherents of a glorious cause. In the society 
of rank and genius, it also endowed him, as the representative of 
liberal principles, with a dignity that met unawed the gaze of an 
opponent, and enabled him to estimate at their just value the 
grandeur and blandishments that subdue or captivate those not 
thus fortified. 

The men who thus exert a great and benign personal influence 
usually combine will, intellect, and disinterestedness, in their 
characters ; the two former in various proportions, but the latter 
always in an eminent degree. It is to such a union of high 
qualities that we ascribe the accurate and extensive insight for 
which such men are remarkable. Selfish instincts are proverbi- 
ally short-sighted, and the first requisite for comprehensive views 
is a position elevated above the level of private interest ; it is 
thus that tl^e love of knowledge in the man of science, and the 
enthusiasm for beauty in the poet and artist, lift them into a 
region where what is petty, commonplace, and material, vanish in 
a limitless perspective. The same result is born of wide and 
intelligent sympathies, enlisting the feelings in enlarged social 
enterprises, the will in noble social reforms, and the mind in con- 
templations that embrace the welfare of nations and the good of 
humanity. In a field of action so often perverted to mere 
aggrandizement as that of politics, the presence of a thoroughly 
honest, wise, and ardent humanitarian, like Governeur Morris, is 
a spectacle that exalts our common nature. It affects us like an 
acted poem, and realizes in life the moral romance of history. 



THE ITALIAN MARTYR 

SILVJO PELLICO. 



Eaely on a January morning of the year 1854, a small fune- 
ral cor tig e passed from beneath one of the arcades that line so 
many of the streets of Turin. At that hour they were almost 
deserted ; and the silence made doubly impressive the aspect of 
the few priests who walked beside the bier, and the little group 
of mourners that followed it to the tomb. On the summit of the 
mountain range that girdles the Sardinian capital, masses of snow 
rested, here and there touched with a glittering hue by the first 
pale beams of a winter sun ; prominent, on one lofty slope, rose 
the church of La Superga, where the monarchs of the kingdom 
lie buried; yonder is the street Alfieri, reminding the stranger 
that here the tragic poet of Italy consumed a miseducated youth, 
whose trials he has bitterly recorded in the memoir attached to 
his dramas ; near by is the palace within whose walls are so 
many gems of art ; and not far distant the new church erected by 
the Waldenses, so long banished to the valleys of Piedmont, but 
now allowed "freedom to worship God" in the capital of a 
reformed and progressive state. From the associations this scene 
awakens, if one turn to the modest obsequies first noted, they also 
yield an historical lesson. The body thus unostentatiously car- 
ried to the sepulchre is that of one known far beyond these moun- 
tains, and whose name is identified with patriotism, with genius, 
and with sufiering — three charms to win and to hold the love of 



SILVIO PELLICO. 429 

mankind. It is the funeral of Silvio Pellico. "Era due o tre 
ore," he said, a little ^hile before his death, ''saro in paradiso. 
Se ho peccato, ho espiato. Vedete, — quando ho scritto Le Mie 
Prigioni, ho avuto la vanita de credermi un grand uomo, — nia 
poi ho veduto che non era vero, e mi sono pentito della mio van- 
ita." * Thus meekly, yet confident in his faith, he expired; and 
thus, without public honors, he was buried. But his life was too 
remarkable to be concluded without a glance at its leading facts ; 
and he wrote and suffered in a spirit and to an end which chal- 
lenge, at least, a grateful reminiscence. 

Born in Piedmont, in 1788, Silvio Pellico went, in early 
youth, to Lyons, and returned to Milan to enter upon the career 
of a man of letters and a teacher of youth. In the former voca- 
tion he became favorably known as the author of several trage- 
dies. The example of Alfieri had given a new impulse to this 
form of literature, and it became the favorite vehicle of patriotic 
feeling. There is often a winning grace of diction, and a nobility 
as well as refinement of sentiment, in Pellico's tragedies, but they 
lack the concise vigor and suggestive intensity of his great proto- 
type. He is evidently subdued by, instead of rising above, the 
trammels of dramatic unity ; we but occasionally recognize a per- 
fectly free and glowing utterance ; the mould seems too rigid and 
precise for the thought, and, despite his casual success, it is evi- 
dent that this was not the legitimate sphere for Pellico's genius. 
Yet there is much skill, taste, and emotion, as well as scholarship, 
in his plays. We have been brought into so much nearer contact 
with his mind, through its less studied and artificial expression, 
that these writings do not appear to do full justice or give entire 
scope to his powers. The subjects are mainly historical ; charac- 
terization is secondary to plot and language ; of the latter, Pel- 
lico had a poetical mastery. The scene of Ester d Engaddi 
is laid in the second century, about fifty years after the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem : it is elaborated from Hebrew annals and tra- 
dition. Iginia d^Astl, which enjoyed, at one time, a considerable 

* " In two or .three hours I shall be in paradise. If I have sinned, I have also 
^atoned. When I wrote ' My Prisons,' I had the vanity to believe myself a great 
man ; but then I saw it was not true, and repented of my conceit." 



430 THE ITALIAN MARTYR. 

(.legree of popularity, illustrates a local story of the thirteenth 
century. Eufem'w di Messina is founded on the invasion. of 
Sicily by the Saracens in 825. In each drama the story is used 
as the medium to exhibit some great truth or natural sentiment, 
and in this respect he resembles Joanna Baillie. Thus, Erodiade 
indicates the moral beauty of a fearless annunciation of truth ; 
Lconiero^ the misfortunes attendant on civil discord, as shown in 
the history of the Middle Ages, and the social necessity of human 
fellowship ; in Gismonda is portrayed a woman of magnanimous 
soul .battling with strong passions. Tomaso Moro is the most 
interesting of Pellico's tragedies, to the English reader. It traces, 
with effect, and a certain sympathetic insight, the career and mar- 
tyrdom of Sir Thomas More ; the last scenes, with the exception 
of an unfortunately tame line, are effective, and, throughout, the 
authentic and familiar biographies are followed. But the most 
popular of Pellico's tragedies, and undoubtedly the best, is Fran- 
cesca da Rimini Upon this theme he worked under signal 
advantages. It was already endeared and glorified to the hearts 
and the imaginations of his countrymen, by the memorable epi- 
sode of the Inferno — one of the few instances where Dante 
combines his wonderful intensity of expression with a profound 
tenderness of sentiment, and thus seizes, at once, upon the very 
soul of the reader. The subject also gave scope to love and patri- 
otism — feelings then dominant and glowing in the author's 
breast. With but four characters, he gives a dramatic version of 
the story that accords with the spirit in which it is so impressively 
hinted in the Divina Commedia. The simplicity of the plot and 
the directness of the interlocutors make the mere outline of this 
drama superior to any of its predecessors ; but the earnest and 
beautiful language, and the depth of sentiment that warms and 
colors the whole, give it an harmonious and deep interest. It is, 
in fact, a graceful elaboration of the Dantesque episode which 
constitutes its appropriate introduction. One passage from the 
lips of Paolo always thrills an Italian audience : 

•' Ho sparso 
Di Bizanzio pel trono il sangue mio, 
Deballando citta ch' io non odiava, 
E fama ebbi di grande e d'onor colmo 



SILVIO PELLICO. 431 

Fui dal clemente imperador : dispetto 
In me facean gli universali applausi 
Per chi di stragi si macchio il mio brando ? 
Per lo straniero. E non ho patria forse 
Cui sacro sia de cittadini il sangue ? 
Per te, per te, che cittadini hai prodi, 
Italia mia, combattero, se oltraggio 
Ti moYera la invidia. E il piu gentile 
Terren non sei di quanti scalda il sole? 
D' ogni bell' arte non sei madre, o Italia? 
Polve d' eroi non e la polve tua ? 
Agli avi miei tu valor desti e seggio. 
E tutto quanto ho di piu caro alberghi ! " * 

Notwithstanding the popularity of this work, Pellico, in the 
preface to his collected Tragedie e Caniiche (the latter best 
introduced by him into Italian literature), speaks of them with a 
self-distrust which evinces his consciousness of more efficient lit- 
erary powers. Many of them were written, he says, during sea- 
sons of intense anxiety, and when the natural vivacity and freedom 
of his mind were baffled by painful circumstances. His little trear 
tise, Dei Dover l degl'i Uomini, is a lucid address to youth on 
morality, in which good precepts are clearly enforced, and the obli- 
gations of religion and virtue defined. The author's name and 
style gave it sanction in Italy, where works of the kind are rare. 

The interest of his dramatic writings was soon eclipsed by the 
tragedy of his own life. Let any one compare the formal and 
prescriptive style of utterance in one of these scholarly dramas 
with the angelic simplicity and soul-bred pathos of Le Mie 
Prigloni, and he will realize anew, and most vividly, the differ- 
ence between the genuine and the conventional in literature. To 
write from inventive skill and from consciousness, to paint imag^ 
inary and real woes, to draw inspiration from the dry annals of 
the past and from the living, conscious, actual, present, — how 
diverse the process and the result ! The genius of Pellico, the 
very elements of his nature, appear in the record of his imprison- 
ment ; there he speaks without art, and from the depths of moral 
experience ; the utterance is childlike, earnest, direct, and there- 
fore inexpressibly real and affecting. His articles in the ConciU 

* Francesca da Rimini, Act i., So. v. 



432 THE ITALIAN MARTYR. 

iatore^ a Liberal journal established at Milan, occasioned his 
arrest. The origin of this periodical is due to Pellico, who acted 
as secretary of the associated writers, comprising some of the best 
minds of Italy in each department : in literature, Manzoni, Ber- 
chet, who has been styled the Italian Tyrteus, Camillo Uzoni. a 
profound critic, Pietro Borsieri, Ludovico de Marchesi de Breme, 
Giovanni Scalvini, Sismondi, and Pellegrino Bossi — although 
the two last resided at Geneva ; for political science, Gioja, Bo- 
magnosi, Count Giovanni Arrivabene e Dal Pozzo, the Marquis 
Hermes Visconti; for the exact sciences, Carlini, Mosetti, and 
Plana. Pellico narrates the event of his arrest with brief sim- 
plicity : "i^w arrestato alle ore S pojnesi diaiie del giorno 13 
Octobre^ 1820." But another describes the climax of this infa- 
mous act more indignantly : "A young man, pale but calm, sur- 
rounded by sbirri, descended the Giant's Staircase in Venice, 
and, crossing the piazza of San Marco, mounted the scaffold. 
That young man, attenuated, manacled, beside malefactors, was 
the author of ' Francesca ; ' it was thou, child of Italian genius, 
dragged to the block between files of foreign soldiers and of 
police guards — thou, Silvio, a lamb of expiation ! " Thence- 
forth, until the day of his release, a period of several years, his 
story is told by himself, in a prose-poem, which the world knows 
by heart. 

Few political combinations in history are more justifiable than 
that identity with which caused his imprisonment. The leaders 
were not r^sh experimentalists, or ambitious malecontents, but 
men who deliberately sought to check a tide of reaction which 
threatened the best interests of humanity. The good they craved 
had been in a measure realized, and then wrested from their 
grasp; a dawn had broken upon their benighted country, and 
quickened its latent civic life and moral resources, only to be 
succeeded by the eclipse which an ignorant despotism initiated. 
It was like w^ithdrawing the draught from lips parched with thirst 
just as they were moistened, — excluding the air of heaven from 
one accustomed to range the mountains and the sea, — or quench- 
ing the household fire at the instant its genial warmth penetrated 
the chilled frame of the northern wanderer. We are too apt to 
imagine the revolutionists of the early part of this century as 



SILVIO PELLICO. 433 

restless fanatics, seeking a Utopian boon, and to confound the 
movements of the southern nations, after the fall of Napoleon, 
with the ultra radicals of the first French convulsion. It is not 
enough remembered that the Italian Liberals of 1820 had expe- 
rienced the beneficent effects of more free institutions and a com- 
prehensive policy, under the arbitrary but comparatively enlight- 
ened sway of Europe's modern conqueror. When he crossed the 
Alps, he carried new principles into the heart of Italy ; a thou- 
sand time-hallowed abuses vanished before the code he instituded ; 
feudalism gave way, for the time, to progress ; entails, titles, sacer- 
dotal tyranny, monopolies, absurd laws, and many other social 
evils, disappeared, or were essentially mitigated; petty states 
were merged into one confederacy ; the palsied arm of industry 
was active in effecting local improvements of vast public utility ; 
capitalists found profitable investments; an avenue was opened 
for men of action, and men of thought uttered and published the 
ideas they had long cherished in secret ; military enthusiasm was 
awakened by the prospect of advancement, and the certain reward 
which followed merit: in a word, a fresh and infinitely higher 
and more productive life, civic, social, and individual, follo\\;ed 
the Italian campaigns. The Emperor's rule was despotic, but he 
was then abreast with the spirit of the age, and, so far as it was 
possible without interfering with his own political authority, he 
promoted social progress and national feeling in the beautiful land 
which his victories had won from a score of bigoted and narrow 
rulers, whose despotism combined mean intrigue with blind cru- 
elty. To the large middle class of the Peninsula, and especially 
to the educated youth, a return to the old state of things from 
this vital and progressive experience was intolerable. The divis- 
ion of the country between Bourbons, archduchesses, and popes, 
and into minute states, with the resumption of the base system of 
espionage, secret trials, onerous taxes, impeded navigation, eccle- 
siastical privileges, and censorship, was alone sufficient to goad a 
patriotic mind into revolt or exile ; but when Austrian bayonets 
enforced this retrograde and tyrannic rule, and the mental devel- 
opment, as well as the personal rights, of citizens, were invaded 
by brute force, upon the slightest pretext, it may easily be imag- 
ined that indignant protest was soon followed by a secret compact 
37 



434 THE ITALIAN MARTYR. 

to overthrow, by the gradual formation of an efficient public 
sentiment, — to vent itself, when mature, in united action, — the 
dynasties which thus strove to bind, inexorably, the living frame 
of an awakened 'nation to the corpse of an obsolete and unsanc- 
tioned rule. Even the passing traveller sympathized with the 
regrets of the inhabitants, harassed as he was, at every frontier, 
by passport and custom-house regulations ; and, on every occa- 
sion when a good road, a handsome bridge, or any other rare 
sign of intelligent enterprise, met his eye, referred to the tempo 
di NapoleoJie as the era of the improvement. 

Like a mystical web, therefore, Carbonarism spread over 
Europe. Doubtless the association included many incapable of 
appreciating the grand results aimed at by the more intelligent 
and generous ; many united themselves to the league from 
motives of selfishness ; and even the leading spirits committed 
the fatal error of seeking the alliance of kings and nobles, whose 
pledges were as hollow as their patriotism. Yet, among the 
innumerable disciples of this secret and extensive combination 
were some of the noblest and most gifted men of the age ; and 
no class evinced more constancy, good faith, and self-sacrifice, 
than the band of Italian youths who fell victims to the despotic 
cruelty of Francesco I. It was, however, partly in self-defence 
that he adopted the extreme course, towards these brave and 
patriotic men, which brought upon his rule the condemnation- of 
the Christian world. He saw the growing conspiracy, and beheld, 
with well-founded apprehension, his brother princes give in their 
allegiance to a body whose real purpose was the utter destruction 
of thrones. To secure his own, by striking terror into the ranks 
of these mysterious allies, he determined to leave no means untried 
to discover the secrets of the fraternity, and to make a fearful 
example of those upon whom he could plausibly fix the charge 
of complicity. Hence the system of terrorism, the inquisitorial 
examinations, the long suspense, the Jesuitical espionage, and, 
finally, the condemnation to scafibld and prison, which render the 
experience of these martyrs often as piteous as that of the early 
Christians, and as horribly mysterious as the victims of the Span- 
ish Inquisition, or the Venetian Council, in their most palmy 
days. It is this refinement of cruelty which has rendered 



SILYIO PELLICO. 435 

infamous the Austrian government. The political offenders of 
Lombardy, in 1820, were subjected to the examination of com- 
missioners notoriously venal and cruel. No opportunity was 
allowed them to prove their innocence ; the slightest pretext 
sufficed to arouse suspicion, and, when this occurred, the arrest 
followed. Henceforth the prisoner was allowed no intercourse 
with his family ; his papers were seized, his companions threat- 
ened ] he was thrown into a slimy dungeon, or under burning 
leads ; allowed only inadequate food ; and when sleep, brought on 
by the exhaustion consequent on these cruelties, came to his 
relief, he was suddenly aroused at midnight, and urged, while in 
a state of half-somnolency, to confess, to give up the name of a 
comrade, or to sign a paper which would prove his ruin. Some- 
times his sentence was announced, and he was told to prepare for 
death ; at others, promises of freedom and office were held out on 
condition of betraying a friend ; false news of painful import was 
conveyed to him, in order to induce despair or turpitude : and 
thus for months, and sometimes years, he was basely tortured 
before his real fate was made known ; and at last, when tyranny 
bad exhausted her wiles, he was led out to die, or secretly con- 
veyed to a distant and living tomb. 

As the dead face of Caraccioli reappeared on the surface of the 
Bay of Naples, and, with ghastly reproach, seemed to confront 
the great English admiral who so infamously lent himself to the 
sacrifice of an Italian patriot, Pellico's record of his imprison- 
ment, translated into every language, seemed to rise, by virtue of 
its own elevated and tender sentiment, to the view of Christen- 
dom. He became a representative man. Through his revela- 
tions, sympathy for the political martyrs of his country was 
universally awakened ; the dark deeds of Austria came to light, 
and the names of her noble victims ^ere, thenceforth, passports 
to the hospitality of every land where they found refuge. This 
service is enough to consecrate the name of Silvio Pellico ; and, 
to excuse him, in the sight of more ardent and less afflicted com- 
rades, for keeping aloof, during the few years that remained to 
him, from the controversies that divided even his own party, and 
the hopeless experiments which continued to send annually new 
devotees of freedom to prison and the scaffold. There was 



436 THE ITALIAN MARTYR. 

another reason for this inactivity. All the readers of Le Mic 
Prigioni must remember how strong in the author's heart was 
filial devotion. The tie which bound him to his parents was of 
sin^'ular tenacity, and it was rendered more binding by years, 
not only of separation, but of entire non-intercourse. Accord- 
ingly, when the hour of liberation came, it was as a son that the 
poor captive most earnestly once more took up the broken thread 
of social life. To devote himself to his parents was his first and 
sacred duty, and one w^hich he fulfilled. The danger of another 
forcible separation from them was imminent ; for a long period 
after his release, he was subject to vigilant espionage ; he there- 
fore gratefully accepted the office of librarian to a benevolent and 
noble lady of Turin, and divided his time between his parents 
and his books. In this retirement honors often reached him. 
Few living authors have derived such literary celebrity and 
personal affection from a single production. The Academy of 
Sciences did not admit him to their ranks ; but Gioberti dedi- 
cated his principal work to the gentle martyr of Spielberg. A 
highly flattering invitation was extended to him, with the promise 
of emolument, to make France his residence. Foscolo desired 
that he mio-ht be buried under the shadow of the same cross. 
Lord Byron would have satirized Monti had not Pellico disarmed 
him by relating several noble acts of his brother poet. And 
scarcely a month passed that some admiring traveller did not 
solicit the pleasure of grasping his hand, in testimony of the love 
his sufferings, and his resignation, and his genius, had inspired. 
Nor let it be supposed that he had grown indifferent to his coun- 
try. On his death-bed he said to a friend : " S'ingannano quelli, 
che ritengono che io non amo piu Tindipendenza italiana ; io solo 
mi ritirai dagli uomini, che vi avevano una parte attiva dal 
memento che vidi immischiarvisi il Mazzinismo, il quale sempre 
vorra turbare quella santa impresa. II mio carattere non si 
affaceva alia doppia lotta." * He felt deeply the misrepresenta- 

* "They deceive themselves who hold that I do not love Italian independence. 
I only withdrew myself from men who had taken an active part, from the 
moment I saw them mingle themselves with Mazzini-ism, wjiich always seeks to 
disturb that holy undertaking. My character will not admit of this double 



SILVIO PELLICO. 437 

tion of his political critics. "I left Spielberg," says one of his 
letters, "to suffer another martyrdom in my own country — 
calumny, desertion, and scorn, which have stripped all earthly 
illusion from life." 

It is not uncommon to regard sense and sentiment as antao;o- 
nistic ; the great truth, that they blend in the highest natures, is 
not sufficiently recognized. The effect produced by Le Mie 
Pri(jloni is a valuable illustration of this fact. The work is a 
truthful statement of an individual's experience, under the sen- 
tence of Austria for the honest exercise of an individual and 
natural right. There are no details given of the specific charge, 
the means used to extort evidence, or the facts of the trial ; not 
a word of invective appears throughout. After the incident of 
the arrest, we are taken to the prisoner's cell, and admitted to 
his inmost consciousness ; we hear him sigh, we behold his tears, 
watch his sleep, listen to his prayers, and become witnesses of 
the monotonous external, but vivid inward life, of those years of 
incarceration. The great idea derived from this memorial is. that 
a man of rare endowments, of the deepest sensibility, of the high- 
est aspirations, and most pure aims, is forcibly separated from the 
world of nature and humanity, — his sacred birthright. — shut 
up with felons, invested with the livery of crime, denied com- 
munion with books, subjected to the greatest physical discipline 
and moral isolation ; and, although the author of this great wrong 
is scarcely alluded to, we revert to him, for this very reason, with 
the deeper indignation, and follow the pen of the generous martyr 
with more profound sympathy. Vengeance could not have imag- 
ined, nor wit fashioned, a work so well adapted to operate on 
public opinion ; and yet, so far from being the product of a 
shrewd or vindictive mind, it is the simple overflowing of a 
frank and benign spirit ; and, by virtue of the very resignation, 
patience, love, and truth, it breathes, it became a seal of condem- 
nation to the Austrian government, and an appeal for the Lib- 
erals of Italy throughout the civilized world ! Even the censors 
of a jealous monarch were blind to its latent significance. The 
priests regarded it as a testimony to the efficacy of their creed ; 
the Royalists thought it the confession of a penitent republican ; 
and the Liberals hailed it as an eloquent picture of the cruelty 
37^ 



438 THE ITALIAN MARTYR. 

of despotic rule. But while thus understood in Italy, the world 
at large was absorbed in the revelation it afforded,- so clear, 
unstudied, and authentic, of the possible fate of a man of rare 
vrorth and genius, who dared to write and act for his country, in 
the state of Lombardy, and during the nineteenth century. 

For several years Silvio Pellico has been regarded, even in the 
community where he dwelt, as dead to the world, — utterly ••with- 
drawn from the active interests of social life, and even indifferent 
to that great cause of political reform in behalf of which he so 
bravely suffered. It was in a resigned, and not in a misanthropic 
spirit, however, that he lived. His motto was, '' Legyo, penso^ 
aino gl'i amici^ non odio 7iessiino, rispetto le altj-iil oplnionl e 
conserco le mie.'' This isolation was self-imposed in a degree, 
yet circumstances scarcely appreciated by the uninformed and 
enthusiastic, seem to us not only to render it excusable, but 
wise. The privation and moral anguish incident to a rigorous 
imprisonment, unalleviated by physical comfort, books, or the 
least knowledge of the external world, affect individuals accord- 
ing to their temperament and character. The resignation and 
self-control so remarkable in Pellico did not prevent the most 
terrible influence upon his organization ; while, in the case of 
Foresti, a chronic disease of the digestive organs was induced by 
sparse nourishment and incarceration, and Maroncelli's limb mor- 
tified from the irritation of fever brought on by the same trials, 
Pellico, being of a highly nervous physique, experienced a 
cerebral attack : and, although the duration of his captivity was 
several years less than that of some of his companions, they, 
when released, in many instances, exhibited greater vigor of 
body and mind. No one, who has perused the affecting record 
of this gifted man's life in prison, need be informed that a more 
sensitive being has seldom lived. Of a delicate frame, with the 
keenest sense of beauty, a heart tender, loyal, and devoted, a 
mind imbued with the love of letters, and a natural piety which 
made him alive to all the teachings of human existence, who 
can wonder, that, suddenly deprived of home, friends, the scenes 
of nature, and the scope required by a healthy and cultivated intel- 
lect, his constitution received a fatal shock, which rendered 
him, when again restored to society, unfit to mingle in its bustle 



SILVIO PELLICO. 439 

and festivities? Who can blame a man, thus organized and thus 
subdued, for retreating to a domestic nook, to watch over his aged 
parents, and avoid the excitement of outward life ? Silvio Pel- 
lico's sufferings rendered him prematurely old. He could, with 
reason, plead for serenity as the only boon left. The harmony of 
his nature had been fatally disturbed by the wrongs he had suf- 
fered ; mind and body no longer acted in effective concert : the 
pallor, born of a dungeon's shadow, rested on his high and smooth 
forehead ; his sight was dimmed by years of twilight, his voice 
tremulous from the sighs of captivity. Instead of a stern indig- 
nation, a firm antagonism of mood, such as many of his comrades 
had maintained during their long imprisonment, Pellico sought to 
cherish a gentle, forgiving, and patient state of mind, beautiful in 
itself, but so destitute of the element of resistance that the iron 
of tyranny, if it did not so deeply enter his soul, more entirely 
prostrated his organism. Yet, to the last, he found comfort in 
his affectionate correspondence. " My health is gone," he wrote 
to Eoresti, his fellow-prisoner, and so long the endeared Italian 
exile, and favorite teacher of his native tongue in New York, 
" and I with difficulty survive threatening suffocation. Yet life 
has its consolations. Never forget the gifts of intelligence and 
of feeling which developed in you during our common misfortune. 
I have learned that but little is needed to beautify existence, save 
the society of the loved and honorable." 

The era of Pellico's early youth was not favorable to earnest- 
ness of character. He imbibed some of the ideas set afloat in the 
world of thought by the followers of Voltaire, and his first literarj 
tastes were unavoidably tinged with the superficial views incident 
to the absence of faith which marked the era succeeding the 
French Revolution ; but his nature was too pure and aspiring to 
succumb to these prevalent influences. Some of his contempo- 
rary authors were inspired by serious convictions: it was the 
epoch of Foscolo, and that gifted band of Italian poets and thinkers 
of which he was a central figure. At the house of the nobleman 
in Milan to whose children he was preceptor, Pellico associated 
with the best thinkers and writers of Lombardy. He there formed 
the acquaintance of many eminent persons — among them Count 
Porro, Byron, Brougham, Thorwaldsen, Schlegel, and Madame 



440 THE ITALIAN MARTYR. 

de Stael. His contributions to the Conciliatore were distin- 
guished for the grace and elegance of their style, and at this 
period both the motive and the means of literary culture were 
fully enjoyed. The transition from such a sphere to a prison led 
him to reflect, with new zest, upon the discipline of life, the mys- 
teries of the soul, and the truths of revelation. His latent reli- 
gious sentiment was awakened. His heart, thrust back from the 
amenities of cultivated society and the delight of kindred, turned 
to God with a zeal and a singleness of purpose before unknown. 
He became devout, and experienced the solace and the elevation 
of Christian faith. There have been critics who pretend to see 
in this perfectly natural result only a proof of weakness, or an 
indication of despair. The candid utterance of pious feeling in 
his Prigioni was regarded, by the cynical, as evidence of a broken 
spirit and when he persevered in retirement and the offices of 
his faith, after emancipation, it was said that the wiles of Jesuit- 
ism had made him a victim and induced his political abdication. 
But no one can examine the writino;s of Pellico without feelino; 
that he was evidently a man of sentiment. It was this quality, 
as contrasted with the severity of Alfieri, that first gained him 
popularity as a dramatic writer, that endeared him to family and 
friends, and that made him a patriot and a poet. Solitude, by 
the very laws of nature, where such a being is concerned, devel- 
oped his religious sentiment ; and to the predominance of this, 
united with physical disability, is to be ascribed his passive and 
hermit life. It should be a cause of praise, and not of reproach. 
He was true to himself: and in view alone of the sincerity and 
the consolation he obviously derived from religion, we are not 
disposed to quarrel with his Catholicism. The errors of that 
creed had no power over his generous and simple nature ; it was 
hallowed to him by early association, and by parental sanctions ; 
and there is no evidence that he accepted its ministrations with 
superstitious imbecility, but rather i^ a spirit above and beyond 
forms, and deeply cognizant of essential truth. 



THE POPULAR POET 

THOMAS CAMPBELL. 



Whex Burns was on his death-bed, he said to a fellow-member 
of his military corps, '" Don't let the awkward squad fire over 
me." There is an awkward squad in the ranks of all professions, 
and most earnestly is their service to be deprecated on any occa- 
sions calling for solemnity or tenderness. Then we demand what 
is graceful, harmonious, and efficient. Yet it is the constant fate 
of genius to be tried by other arbiters than its peers, to be pro- 
faned by idle curiosity and malignant gossip. The ' ' awkward 
squad " in literature not only fire over the graves of poets, but 
are wont to discharge annoying batteries of squibs at them while 
living. The penny-a-liners scent a celebrity afar off, and hunt it 
with the pertinacity of hounds ; they flock in at the death like a 
brood of vultures ; and often, without the ability either to sympa- 
thize with or to respect the real claims they pretend to honor, 
show up the foibles, mutilate the sayings, and fabricate the doings, 
of those whose unostentatious private lives, to say nothing of the 
dignity of their public fame, should protect them from microscopic 
observation and vulgar comment. 

No modern English poet has suffered more from this kind of 
notoriety than Campbell. Unlike his brother bards, he neither 
sought rural seclusion nor foreign exile, but continued to haunt 
cities to the last ; and it is refreshing to turn from the hackneyed 
sketches of him in the magazines to his own letters and the history 
of his early career, and revive our best impressions of his character. 



442 THE POPULAR POET. 

To do this we must discard what is irrelevant, and contemplate 
the essential. The only demand we have any moral right to 
make upon the bard who has enlisted our hearts by his song, is 
that there exist in his actions and tone of feeling a spirit consist- 
ent with the sentiments deliberately advocated in his verse. There 
is no reason whatever to expect in him immunity from error ; we 
are irrational to look for a beauty of feature, a majesty of life, 
and an evenness of temper, corresponding with the ideal created 
by the finish and exaltation of his poetry : but if baseness deface 
the behavior and indifference chill the intercourse of him who 
has eloquently breathed into the ear of the world noble and glow- 
ing emotion, we are justified in feeling not only disappointment, 
but almost scepticism as to the reality of these divine sympathies. 
Such an anomaly we do not believe possible in the nature of 
things. In spite of what is so often asserted of the discrepancy 
between authorship and character, literary biography demon- 
strates that " as a man thinketh so is he." 

Milton and Dante, Goldsmith and Petrarch, were essentially 
what their works proclaim them, although the former occasionally 
exhibited asceticism, which is the extreme of that genius whose 
characteristic is will, and the latter sometimes displayed the 
weakness which, in our human frailty, attaches to the genius 
whose main principle is love. A touch of pedantry and hardihood 
slightly deforms the images of those august spirits who explored 
the unseen world, as vanity and egotism mar the serene beauty 
of the gentler minstrels who sung of the tender passion and the 
charms of domestic life. Were it otherwise, they would eclipse 
instead of representing humanity. There is a process of metro- 
politan decadence to which literary celebrities are liable, especially 
in London, for which we, whose privilege it is to look upon them 
over the grand perspective of the sea, should make just allowance. 
The most absurd whim of modern society is that of making what 
are called lions of authors, and especially of poets. No class of 
men appear to less advantage in a conventional position ; and no 
two principles can be more radically adverse than that of mutual 
agreeableness, conformity, and display, of which society techni- 
cally considered is the arena, and the spirit of earnestness, nature, 
and freedom, characteristic of poets. Idolized ^as they usually 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 443 

are, and with good reason, in the domestic circle and among inti- 
mate friends, the very qualities which are there elicited general 
society keeps in abeyance. Tact is the desideratum in the latter 
as truth is in the former ; and though sometimes the natural dig- 
nity and manliness of genius successfully asserts itself in the face 
of pretence fortified by etiquette, as in the case of Burns at Edin- 
burgh, the exception is too memorable not to have been rare. 
The consequence of this want of relation between the spirit of 
society and the poetic character is that a formal homage is paid 
its representatives on their first appearance, which, at length, 
becomes wearisome to both parties ; and, if the time-honored 
guest has not the wisdom to anticipate his social decay and with- 
draw into honorable retirement, those upon whose memories the 
prestige of his original reputation does not rest are apt to fail in 
that recognition which habit has made almost necessary to his 
self-respect. 

The admirers of dramatic and musical genius keenly regret the 
reappearance of the favorites of their youth in public, only to 
awaken the unfeeling curiosity of a neAV generation ; and some- 
what of the same melancholy attaches to the prolonged social 
exhibition of a man whose verse has rendered his name sacred 
to our associations and remembrance. That familiarity which 
breeds contempt denies the original glory of his presence. The 
name freely bandied at the feast comes to be repeated with less 
reverence at the fireside. The voice, whose lowest accent was 
once caught with breathless interest, is suiFered to lose itself in 
the hum of commonplace table-talk ; and the brow to which every 
eye used to turn with sympathetic wonder seems no longer to 
wear the mysterious halo with which love and fancy crown the 
priests of nature. And usually the victim of this gradual dis- 
enchantment is quite unconscious of the change, until suddenly 
aroused to its reality. Aware of no blight upon his tree of 
promise, inspired by the same feelings which warmed his youth, 
wedded to the same tastes, and loyal to the same sentiments, with 
a kind of childlike trustfulness he reposes upon his own identity, 
and is slow to believe in the precarious tenure upon which merely 
social distinction is held. 

To a reverent and generous spectator this is one of those scenes 



444 THE POPULAR POET. 

in the drama of life, which is the more affecting because so few 
look upon it with interest. We sigh at the fragility of personal 
renown, and pity the enthusiasm that seems doomed to " make 
idols and to find them clay." Then how enviable appear those 
who '' are gathered to the kings of thought, far in the unap- 
parent," — the young poet who died in the freshness of his life, 
and the aged bard who seasonably retreated to the sequestered 
haunts of nature, and breathed his last far from the busy world 
where the echo of his fame yet lingered ! We are chiefly pained, 
in the opposite case, at the difficulty of associating the author 
with his works, the written sentiment with the ordinary talk, the 
poet with the man, when we are thus brought into habitual con- 
tact with the social effigy of genius. We are also mortified at 
the inconsistency of feeling which leads men to guard and cher- 
ish an architectural fragment, and yet interpose no wise and 
charitable hand to preserve from sacrilege "creation's master- 
piece, the poet soul; " which expends such hero-worship upon the 
distant and the dead, but holds up no shield between the great- 
ness at their side and the indifferent or perhaps malicious gaze 
of the world. Modern philanthropy has furnished asylums for 
almost all the physical and moral ills to which flesh is heir ; but 
the award of celebrity apparently cancels the obligations of society 
towards the gifted. If improvident, as is usually the case, pov- 
erty and neglect are often their lot in age ; and if prosperous in 
circumstances, but bereft of near and genial ties, they are home- 
less, and consequently reckless. 

Instances of private sensibility to claims like these, not only 
felt but realized with beautiful zeal, are indeed recorded to the 
honor of our common nature; and such benefactors as Mrs. 
Unwin, the friend of Cowper, and the Gilmans, at whose house 
Coleridge died, will live in honor when more ostentatious almoners 
are forgotten. Let us congratulate ourselves that we are seldom 
among the witnesses of the social decadence of our favorite 
English authors. Freshly to us yet beams their morning fame ; 
we know them only through their works, and death has but can- 
onized what love had endeared. There is no dreary interlude 
between the glorious overture and the solemn finale. Their gar- 
lands, to our vision, press unwithered brows. The music of their 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 445 

names has never lost its spirit-stirring cadence ; when uttered, 
memorable and eloquent passages recur, as "at the touch of an 
enchanter's wand.'- "\Ye think of Bjron as he describes himself 
in his romantic pilgrimage, not as he appeared at Holland House 
and Drury. Shellej's memory is undimmed by the air of a 
chancery court, and remains as lofty, pure, and ethereal, as his 
funeral pyre ; and Burns we never saw performing excise duties. 
But of all the modern poets of Great Britain, the one whose 
memory we could have least suffered to be desecrated was Camp- 
bell ; and we rejoice to have known him as the bard of Hope, and 
not as Tom Campbell, especially as his correspondence exhibits his 
eminent title to poetical character as well as genius, and repudiates 
the shallow gossip which drew such superficial portraits of him in 
later years. 

We find in these letters that Campbell the man was worthy of 
Campbell the poet ; and that the ideal we had cherished of the 
author of Gertrude and Hohenlinden was essentially true to 
nature. The manner in which he has been dealt wath, even by 
literary men, and especially by social detractors, is only another 
illustration of the humiliating truth that " Folly loves the mar- 
tyrdom of Fame." Our view of the character of distinguished 
persons is three-fold : that derived from the deeds or writings upon 
wdiich their fame rests, the report of contemporaries, and their 
own memoirs and letters. Between the first and last there 
is usually some essential harmony, but the intermediate link in 
the chain of evidence seldom coincides with either. The decease 
of a renowned person is followed by the publication of his life, 
and recently it has been the wise and just custom to rely as far as 
possible on the testimony of the subject, rather than the opinions 
of the biographer. 

The result is that the misrepresentations and partial glimpses 
afforded by rumor and ambitious scribblers give way before the 
direct and authentic revelation of facts and personal correspond- 
ence, and we enjoy the high satisfaction of reconciling the man 
and the author, and the assurance that the sentiment and tone 
which originally endeared to us the one were truly embodied in 
the other. How different is the view now cherished of Burns, 
Byron, Keats, and Lamb, from that prevalent before we were 
38 



446 THE POPULAR POET. 

fully admitted to a knowledge of their trials, habite, temptations, 
and ways of feeling and acting, by the record of sorrowing 
friends, and the appearance of their familiar and confidential let- 
ters ! In consideration of the inveterate tendency to exaggerate 
and distort the simple facts of a marked career, it would seem 
not only excusable but requisite for those who have won the pecu- 
liar sympathy or admiration of the world, to write an autobiog- 
raphy. Such a work, undertaken in the spirit and executed with 
the frank good-nature which belong to those of Cellini, Alfieri, 
Goldoni, and we may add, as a recent instance, the fragments of 
Southey and Haydon, are better portraits to bequeath than the 
formal and incomplete lives too often substituted by the zeal of 
friendship or the enterprise of authors. 

Next to a good autobiography, however, the best service which 
can be rendered departed genius is to bring together and unite by an 
intelligent and genuine narrative such personal memorials as most 
clearly represent the man as he was. However unambitious, the 
task is one of sacred responsibility, due not less to the enthusiasm 
which cherishes, than to the gifts which hallow, posthumous 
renown. We can then trace the elements of character as devel- 
oped in boyhood, estimate the influence of education and circum- 
stances, and recognize the domestic and social life of those 
whose personal reputation may have appeared incongruous with 
their permanent fame ; thus realizing the process and the principle 
of their eminence. It is not eulogy which we require ; that, if 
deserved, is apparent in the deeds or words which have become a 
passport to glory ; it is facts, sentiments, familiar illustrations, 
whereby to judge for ourselves of the man whose name is indis- 
solubly associated in our minds with the inspiration of heroism 
and poetry. The characters of a poet and a man of letters are 
so often blended in literary memoirs as to appear identical, but 
their distinctness in nature is marked by inevitable traits. 
Seldom has the difference between the two been more clearly 
indicated than in the biography of Campbell ; and the illustration 
is more emphatic from the fact that we are admitted to his expe- 
rience and opinions through familiar correspondence. 

The grand peculiarity of the poetic nature is faith in sentiment 
of some kind, obedience to its inspiration, delight in its utterance, 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 



44T 



and loyalty to its dictates. Neither time, nor interest, nor logic, 
suffice to exhaust or modify this vital principle. Where it fails 
to triumph over these, it is evidently inadequate to justify the 
title of bard, minstrel, poet, or whatever name we apply to those 
upon whose minds its influence is pervading and instinctive. To 
infuse the life of his own spirit, the glow of his personal emotion, 
into thought and language, is the characteristic of the poet. His 
w^ords differ from those of other men chiefly by virtue and a mag- 
netic quality. They appeal to consciousness rather than under- 
standing, to the entire soul instead of the exclusive intellect. 
Hence they have power to stir the blood, linger on the ear, excite 
the imagination, and warm the heart. On the other hand, the 
man of letters can only grasp the technicalities of the art and 
wield the machinery of verse. As youth decays, as circumstances 
alter, as public taste varies, the enthusiasm which, at first, gave 
a temporary fire to his rhythmical writing, is subdued to such a 
degree as to render Lis so-called muse a very flexible and hack- 
neyed creature — the mere effigy of what she once promised to be. 
The genuine poet, on the contrary, strives in vain to reconcile 
himself to the mechanical drudgery of the pen ; is coy of an art 
w^hose real excellence he has too keenly felt to be satisfied with 
any "counterfeit presentment ; " and lives on, wedded by an eternal 
affinity to the love of his youth, although he may have outgrown 
all relation to it but that of veneration and remembrance. The 
few gems of the latter outlive the mines opened by the former ; 
scintillations of lyric fire, radiated from an earnest heart and gen- 
erated by its native warmth, beam on like stars in the firmament ; 
while the elaborate productions of tasteful and learned industiy 
■' fade into the light of common day." Only a felicitous passage, 
a theme accidentally enlivened by an impulse from individual 
life, redeems the ingenious and diffuse metrical composition from 
oblivion ; but the spontaneous product of an inspired mind 
becomes a household and a national treasure. 

Campbeirs early life gave promise of this healthful endowment 
of the poetic faculty. He was a devoted student, and, although 
constantly bearing off prizes, won and retained the love of his 
companions. They once owed a holiday to his rhymed petition, 
and such instances of the lovino; exercise of his talents were of 



448 THE POPULAR POET. 

frequent occurrence. Ilis success at college was eminent in 
Greek ; and the temperament of genius was evinced in the 
extreme alternation of his moods. Although often in high spirits, 
when his deeper feelings became enlisted, gravity ensued. He 
made the most obvious progress both in facility and power of 
expression, as we perceive by the gradual improvement in the 
style of his letters and occasional verses. But the most satisfac- 
tory indication of his poetical gifts we find in the ardor, con- 
stancy, and generous faith, of his sentiments. In friendship, 
domestic intercourse, literary taste, and the observation of nature, 
there was evident, from the first, an enthusiasm and sensibility 
which gave the fairest promise as they brought him into vital 
relation with these sources of moral and sentient experience. 

The early correspondence of few poets has a more truthful 
charm and graceful warmth. It reveals his heart and confirms 
the tenor of his poems. His visits to the Highlands — a residence 
of some months in Germany, and the study of the literature of 
the latter country, with the society of Edinburgh, all combined, 
at this most susceptible and enthusiastic period, to inform, excite, 
and chasten his mind. Thus enriched and disciplined, with the 
most limited pecuniary resources, and the greatest uncertainty 
as to w^hat career he should adopt, the young poet was singularly 
exposed to the impressions of a period, w^hen even the insensible 
and unenlightened were aroused to interest in public affairs, the 
welfare of society, and the progress of mankind. It was an epoch 
of war and of philanthropy, of revolution and experiment, of the 
most infernal tyranny and the noblest self-devotion. The over- 
throw of slavery was then first agitated ; Poland and Greece hero- 
ically struggled, and the martyrdom of the former was achieved. 
The elements of civil society Avere deeply moved ; the cause of 
truth and liberty inspired fresh championship, and the wrongs of 
humanity made themselves felt. At this time he meditated emi- 
grating to America, where one of his brothers was already estab- 
lished. 

It is a curious fact that several of the distinguished modern 
poets of England — among them Coleridge, Southey, and Keats 
— entertained similar views ; and it is an equally curious specu- 
lation to imagine how such a course would have modified their 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 449 

writings and destiny. Campbell, also, with true poetical consist- 
ency, recoiled from the professions and commerce ; and thus, by 
the force of circumstances as well as the promptings of genius, 
seemed destined for a literary life. This vague purpose was con- 
firmed by the unprecedented success of his first poem. There is 
no instance, perhaps, in the annals of literature, of so instantane- 
ous and complete a recognition of the advent of a poet as followed 
the appearance of the "Pleasures of Hope." It introduced him 
at once to fame and society ; and it did this by virtue of the elo- 
quent utterance it gave to feelings which then latently glowed in 
every noble heart. Like a bugle whose echoes speak the morn- 
ing cheer which exhilarates the frame of the newly-roused hunter, 
it caught up, rendered musical and prolonged the strains of pity, 
hope, and faith, rife, though seldom audible, in the world. 

It is essential to poetry of this nature that the sensibilities 
should be acted upon by some actual scene, person, or event ; and 
accordingly we find that every successful composition of Campbell 
has a personal basis. To this, indeed, we may ascribe that spirit 
of reality which constitutes the distinction between forced and 
spontaneous verse. His muse, when herself, is awake, magnetic, 
and spirited ; the sense of beauty, or the enthusiasm of love and 
freedom, being naturally excited, utter themselves in fervid 
strains. Thus the apostrophe to Poland, and the protest against 
scepticism, the appeal to the disappointed lover, the description 
of mutual happiness, and, in fact, all the animated episodes in 
the "Pleasures of Hope," grew directly out of the events of the 
day or the immediate experience of the poet. " Lochiel's Warn- 
ing" embodies a traditionary vein of local feeling derived from 
tbe land of his nativity; the " Exile of Erin" consecrates the 
woes of a poor fellow with whom he sympathized on the banks of 
the Elbe^ the "Beech Tree's Petition" was suggested by an 
interview with two ladies in the garden where it grew; the 
"Lines on a Scene in Bavaria" are a literal transcript from 
memory; " Ye Mariners of England " expresses feelings awak- 
ened by the poet's own escape from a privateer. It is a singular 
coincidence that the draft of this famous naval ode, which was 
found among his papers, was seized, on his return from Germany, 
on the suspicion that his visit had a treasonable design. In the 
38^ 



450 THE POPULAR POET. 

freshness of youth he witnessed a battle, a retreat, and the field 
upon which the night-camp of an army was pitched ; and the 
vivid emotions thus induced he eloquently breathed in " Hohen- 
linden " and the "Soldier's Dream." His dramatic tastes are 
finely reflected in the address to John Kemble, and his classical 
in the ode to the Greeks. We also trace the relation between the 
very nature of the man and whatever appealed to the sense of the 
heroic or the beautiful in his letters. The State Trials excited 
his deepest youthful sympathy. It is natural that to him the 
memorable experiences of life were such incidents as to hear Neu- 
komm play the organ, and to stand with Mrs. Siddons before the 
Apollo Belvidere. The "Turkish Lady" was written while his 
mind was full of a project to visit the East ; and his subsequent 
intention of joining his brother in America, with whom he kept 
up a regular correspondence, accounts for his choice of " The 
Valley of Wyoming " as the scene of Gertrude. 

A critic, whose taste and organization fit him to seize upon the 
vital spirit of works of genius, says that in this poem there is 
" the best got-up bridal " in the whole range of English poetry. 
The zest and truthful beauty of the description is drawn from the 
bard's own experience of the conjugal sentiment. His biographer 
describes Miss Sinclair, who became his wife, as one of those 
women who unite great vivacity of temperament with a latent 
tenderness and melancholy — the very being to captivate perma- 
nently a man at once ardent and tasteful, like Campbell. 

Even his defects point to the same impressible temper. Qtiickly 
aroused to anger, of which several curious instances occur in his 
memoirs, he as quickly yielded to the reaction of generous and 
candid feeling. The transition was as childlike as it was sincere, 
and in perfect accordance with the poetical character. The same 
is true of his alternate relish of severe intellectual lab§r and the 
most luxurious self-indulgence. Campbell by nature was a patriot 
and a philanthropist, a lover and a friend, an enthusiast and a 
scholar; impulsive and fastidious at the same time, generous 
and vain by turns, with sensibility and culture, now fagging and 
now soaring; and, thus constituted, we may imagine the effect 
upon him of being doomed to write in the prime of his life, " My 
son is mad, my wife dead, and my harp unstrung." Yet, like 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 451 

nearly all the gifted men of his age, he was so singularly blessed 
with social privileges, that we are forcibly reminded of Scott's 
declaration that these constituted his real obligations to literature. 
In the course of Campbell's letters, we find him at different periods 
enjoying the society, first of Dr. Burney, Mrs. Inchbald, Dr. 
Gregory, Dugald Stewart, and the leading spirits of the past 
century; then of Klopstock, Schlegel, and Humboldt; and, on his 
return from his first continental visit, of Currie, Roscoe, Sydney 
Smith, Mackintosh, Rogers, and the habitues of Holland House 
in its palmy days : while Madame de Stael, Mrs. Siddons, Scott, 
and the last bright galaxy of British writers, were familiar asso- 
ciates. 

In regard to the form of Campbell's poetry, we are immediately 
struck with his delicate and true feeling for the harmony of lan- 
guage. He knew instinctively how to follow Pope's rule, and 
cause the sound to be an echo to the sense. When a boy he 
expressed keen disappointment at not being able to make a lady 
appreciate the meaning of Homer by the sound of celebrated pas- 
sages. We know of few specimens of English verse comparable 
to the best of Campbell's for effective rhythm. Contrast the 
spirit-stirring flow of the song of the Greeks with the organ-like 
cadence of " Hohenlinden," or the pathetic melody of "Lord 
Ullin's Daughter " with the deep -flowing emphasis of the " Battle 
of the Baltic." It is remarkable that this fine musical adaptation 
belongs to all his genuine pieces — we mean those naturally in- 
spired ; while his muse is never whipped into service, as in Glencoe 
and Theodric. without betraying the fact in her stiff or wayward 
movement. This only proves how real a poet Campbell was. 

We demur, however, to the opinion frequently advanced that 
his poetic fire died out long before his life. One of his noblest 
compositions, lofty and inspiring in sentiment, and grandly musi- 
cal in rhythm, is "Hallowed Ground," and one of his most 
striking pieces. " The Last Man; " both of which were late pro- 
ductions. 

The personality so characteristic of genuine feeling is not only 
evident in the obvious inspiration, but in the verbal execution of 
his conceptions. Thus he constantly impersonates insensible 
objects. It is the bugles that sing truce, and he that lays him- 



452 THE POPULAR POET. 

self beneath the Avillow ; the glow of evening is like, not the 
cheek and brow of woman, but of her we love. Throughout the 
intensity of the feeling personifies the object described, and gives 
human attributes to inanimate things, exactly as in the artless 
language of infancy and the oratory of an uncivilized people. 
Such is the instinct of nature; it is what separates verse from 
prose, the diction of fancy and emotion from that of affairs and 
science. 

If any one is preeminently entitled to the name of poet, in its 
most obvious sense, it is he who so emphatically represents in 
verse a natural sentiment that his expression of it is seized upon 
by the common voice, and becomes its popular utterance. This 
direct, sympathetic, intelligent, and recognized phase of the art 
has been the most significant and effective, from the days of Job 
and Homer to those of Tasso and Campbell. The vivid rhetorical 
embodiment of a genuine feeling prevalent at the time, or charac- 
teristic of humanity, is the most obvious and the most natural 
province of the bard. The ballads of antiquity, the troubadour 
songs, and the primitive national lyric, evince how instinctive is 
this development of poetry. The philosophic combinations of the 
drama, the descriptive traits of the pastoral, and the formal range 
of the epic, are results of subsequent culture and more premedi- 
tated skill. This is also true of the refinements of sentiment, the 
mystical fancies, and the vague expression, which German litera- 
ture, and the influence of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Coleridge, 
have grafted upon modern English verse. 

If we were to adopt a vernacular poet from the brilliant con- 
stellation of the last and present century, as representing legiti- 
mately natural and popular feeling with true lyric energy, such 
as finds inevitable response and needs no advocacy or criticism to 
uphold or elucidate it, ^\e should name Campbell. He Avrote 
from the intensity of his own sympathies with freedom, truth, and 
love ; his expression, therefore, is truly poetic in its spirit : while 
in rhetorical finish and aptness he had the very best culture, 
that of Greek literature. Thus simply furnished with inspiration 
and with a style, both derived from the most genuine sources, 
the one from nature and the other from the highest art, he gave 
melodious and vigorous utterance, not to a peculiar vein of imag- 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 453 

inrition, -like Shelley, nor a mystical attachment to nature, like 
Wordsworth, nor an egotistic personality, like Byron : but to a 
love of freedom and truth which political events had caused to 
glow with unwonted fervor in the bosoms of his noblest contempo- 
raries, and to the native sentiment of domestic and social life, 
rendered more dear and sacred by their recent unhallowed dese- 
cration. It was not by ingenuity, egotism, or artifice, that he 
thus chanted, but honestly, earnestly, from the impulse of youth- 
ful ardor and tenderness moulded by scholarship. 

It is now the fashion to relish verse more intricate, sentiment 
less defined, ideas of a metaphysical cast, and a rhythm less 
modulated by simple and grand cadences; yet to a manly intellect, 
to a heart yet alive with fresh, brave, unperverted instincts, the 
intelligible, glowing, and noble tone of Campbell's verse is yet 
fraught with cheerful augury. It has outlived, in current litera- 
ture, and in individual remembrance, the diffuse metrical tales of 
Scott and Southey : finds a more prolonged response, from -its 
general adaptation, than the ever-recurring key-note of Byron ; 
and lingers on the lips and in the hearts of those who only muse 
over the elaborate pages of those minstrels whose golden ore is 
either beaten out to intangible thinness, or largely mixed with 
the alloy of less precious metal. Indeed, nothing evinces a greater 
want of just appreciation in regard to the art or gift of poetry, 
than the frequent complaints of such a poet as Campbell because 
of the limited quantity of his verse. It would be as rational to 
expect the height of animal spirits, the exquisite sensation of con- 
valescence, the rapture of an exalted mood, the perfect content 
of gratified love, the tension of profound thought, or any other 
state, the very law of which is rarity, to become permanent. 
Campbell's best verse was born of emotion, not from idle reverie 
or verbal experiment ; that emotion was heroic or tender, sympa- 
thetic or devotional — the exception to the e very-day, the com- 
mon-place, and the mechanical ; accordingly, in its very nature, 
it was '• like angels' visits," and no more to be summoned at will 
than the glow of affection or the spirit of prayer. 

That idleness had nothing to do with the wa.nt of productiveness 
of his muse, so absurdly insisted on, during his life, is evident 
from his letters. He was ahyays busy ; but unfortunately for 



454 THE p r u L A 11 poet. 

for the most part, in tasks of literary drudgery undertaken fur 
subsistence ; and deserves laudation instead of censure, for, having 
respected the divine art, he loved, too much to degrade it into 
the service of hackneyed necessity. He was in fact a singularly 
industrious man ; in his youth, an assiduous student while per- 
forming the duties of tutor, clerk, and compiler ; and, in manhood 
and age, always engaged upon some bookseller's undertaking, 
now making an abridgment and now a translation; at one time 
the editor of a magazine, and, at another, of a collection of the 
English poets ; now writing notes for a classic, and now para- 
graphs for a journal, lectures for the Glasgow University, state 
papers foi- Lord Minto, the biography of Mrs. Siddons or Petrarch, 
letters from Algiers, — whatever, in short, offered in the way of 
literary work, that Avould give him bread. His correspondence 
lets us into the secret of his unostentatious and patient labor, his 
constant projects, the suggestions of others, and the encroach- 
ments of ungenial employment upon his sensitive organization. 

One cannot but honor the kindly and philosophic manner in 
which he speaks of his disappointments in these familiar letters ; 
and rejoice to perceive that the feelings which inspired his memo- 
rable lines consoled him under all reverses, so that the moment 
he was in contact with the attractions of nature, friendship, and 
domestic peace, joy revived within him. The genuineness of his 
poetic impulse is thus indicated by the tenor of his life. Instead 
of lazily reposing on laurels early won, he was eminently true to 
the faith and independence which make beautiful the dreams of 
his youth, — devoted to his kindred and friends with self-denying 
generosity, sympathizing, to the last, in the cause of freedom, 
cognizant, everywhere and always, of the intrinsic worth of the 
primal sentiments whose beauty he so fondly sung, and never 
forgetful of the duty and the privileges of amity, courage, and 
fame. Such is the evidence of the unstudied epistles collected by 
Dr. Beattie, the spontaneous record of his occupations, opinions, 
and feelings, throughout life. They are consistent, and worthy 
both of the man and the poet. They exhibit a career divided 
between books and journeys — each nourishing his mind ; an epi- 
sode of domestic happiness which realizes all that good sense 
would advocate and romance glorify, — intervals of great physical 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 455 

suffering, melanclioly bereavements, and cheerless toil, ever and 
anon redeemed bj delightful social intercourse, deserved honors, 
and felicitous moods. The death of his wife, the idiocy of his 
only son, the failure of his own health, his homeless life in Lon- 
don, and his death in forlorn exile, — these, and some of the 
natural consequences of such vicissitudes, throw a gloom over 
portions of his chequered life ; but through them and beyond, now 
that they are passed, the poet rises benignly in the integrity of 
his sentiments and the beauty of his art. 



THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER 

BENJAMIN PRANKLIN. 



The pervading trait of Franklin's character was allegiance to 
the practical. Few devotees of knowledge have so consistently 
manifested this instinct, the more remarkable because united to 
speculative tendencies which quickened his intelligence and occu- 
pied his leisure to the very close of his existence. For the intan- 
gible aims of the metaphysician, the vagaries of the imaginative, 
the "airy bubble reputation," he exhibited no concern; but the 
application of truth to the facts of nature and of life, the discov- 
ery of material laws and their conversion to human welfare, the 
actual influence of morals, economy, politics, and education, upon 
civil society and individual development, were problems upon 
which he never failed to think, read, talk, write, and experiment. 
A striking evidence of this was his youthful disdain of the muses 
(although he wrote quite a respectable ballad at the age of 
twelve), because 'verse-makers generally make beggars;" and 
liis preference, in maturity, for that circle abroad where the 
"understanding" found such exclusive recognition and utter- 
ance: "I believe Scotland," he wrote to Lord Kaimes, "would 
be the country I should choose to spend my days in." Accord- 
ingly the history of the man is that of some of the most pregnant 
of great external interests ; and his entire devotion to them, to 
the exclusion of more ideal, vague, and purely intellectual sub- 
jects, ^rose chiefly from his peculiar mental organization, and 
also, in no small degree, from the transition period in government, 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 457 

society, and popular intelligence, during -which he lived. He was 
so indifferent to literary fame that the indefatigable editor * of 
his works informs us that some of his most characteristic writings 
were never intended for the press, very few were published under 
his own supervision, and nearly all came forth anonymously. 
His object, like Swift's, was immediate effect. In youth he stud- 
ied the art of perspicuous expression in order to act with facility 
upon the minds of others ; but it was in order to disseminate use- 
ful knowledge, to enlarge the boundaries of science, to advocate 
political reform, and direct into expedient channels the enterprise, 
speculation, and party zeal of his day, rather than to build him- 
self a monument in the library, or a shrine in household lore. 
What he achieved as a writer was incidental, not premeditated ; 
for he valued the pen as he did time, money, and experience, for 
its direct tendency to diffuse knowledge, comfort, utility, and set- 
tled principles of inference and action. The most deliberate of 
his writings, that is, the one which seems inspired least by a defi- 
nite purpose and most by the anticipated pleasure of the under- 
taking, is his famous autobiography ; and even in this it is evident 
that the luxury of reminiscences was in abeyance to the desire of 
imparting, and especially to the young, the benefit of his own 
experience. For many years, indeed, the pen of Eranklin was 
too variously employed, and dedicated too constantly to the 
advancement of immediate national interests, to admit of any 
well-considered, elaborate, and finished work. What his written 
and spoken word, however, thus lost in permanent value, it 
gained in vigor and in direct utility. If we glance at the sub- 
jects and occasions, of his tracts, letters, reports, paragraphs, and 
essays, we shall find they embrace the whole circle of questions 
important to his country and his age, — morals, the economy of 
life, commerce, finance, history, and politics. We find in them 
the germs of ideas now triumphant; of principles, through his 
advocacy, in no small degree, since embodied in action, and 
brought to grand practical results. A parable wins men to tol- 
eration; a maxim guides them to frugality; a comprehensive 
argument initiates the plan of that federal union which has proved 

* Jared Sparks, D.D., LL.D. 



458 THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER. 

the key-stone of our national prosperity : the farmer or the mar- 
iner, consulting Poor Richard's Almanac to learn the fluctuation 
of weather or tide, finds, beside these chronicles of Nature's mys- 
teries, advice which puts him unconsciously on the track of provi- 
dent habits, temperance, and contentment ; the patriot in the field 
is cheered by the wisdom of the judge in council ; the shipwright, 
the horticulturalist, the printer, the lowly aspirant for self-im- 
provement, as well as the statesman and the philosopher, find 
Avisdom and encouragement from his " words spoken in season : " 
in the prudent household his name is associated with the invalua- 
ble heating- apparatus that saves their fuel and increases the 
genial warmth of the evening fireside ; in the disconsolate crises 
of war his foreign diplomacy and judicious hints warm the heart 
of valor with the prescience of success ; in the land of his coun- 
try's enemies, his clear statement of grievances and his intrepid 
reproof of injustice conciliate the nobler spirits there, and vindi- 
cate the leaders at home ; the encroachments of savage tribes are 
checked, the policy of colonial rule softened, the comforts of 
domestic life enhanced, the resources of the mind elicited, and, in 
a word, the basis of national prosperity laid on the eternal founda- 
tion of popular enlightenment, self-reliance, and foresight, by the 
oracles of the American philosopher, thus casually uttered and 
incidentally proclaimed. 

But while official duty and patriotism gave Franklin occasion 
to propagate and actualize so many useful and requisite princi- 
ples, — to become the thinker and advocate, the incarnated 
common-sense of his country and his time, — there was another 
sphere of mental activity, another range of spacious enterprise, 
in which he expatiated with kindred success. This was the 
domain of science. When he was not required to apply reflection 
to conduct, and to deal with a great climax in the political world, 
he turned with alacrity to that of natural philosophy. This was 
his congenial element. " I have got my niche," he writes, exult- 
ingly, ' ' after having been kept out of it for twenty-four years by 
foreign appointments." He was, by instinct, a philosopher ; one 
whom Bacon would have hailed as a disciple, and to whom Sir 
Kenelm Digby would have delighted to unfold the merits of the 
'^ sympathetic powder," Sir Thomas Browne to lament " vulgar 



BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. 459 

errors," and Bishop Berkeley to explain the law of optics and the 
merits of tar-water. Lord Brougham expresses the conviction 
that he would have promulgated the inductive philosophy had not 
Bacon anticipated him. 

At the commencement of the seventeenth century the provin- 
cial town, built upon three hills on the coast of Massachusetts, was 
an excellent place for the education of circumstances. Among its 
inhabitants were the most enlio-htened of the English emigrants, 
who brought with them the industrious habits, the domestic dis- 
cipline, the taste for reading, and the love of thrift and enterprise, 
which induce and sustain commercial prosperity and municipal 
order. Questions of church and state, the conservatism of an 
old and the innovations of a new country, — the meeting-house, 
the newspaper, the fireside, and the school-room, — were their 
elements of civilization. The arts of luxury, the venerable in 
architecture, and the beautiful in decoration, had not 'yet super- 
seded more stringent provisions for utility and comfort. The back 
settlements of the continent were exposed to savage invasion. 
The mother country, with her rich historical associations, her 
time-hallowed precedents, her glorious trophies of literature, her 
royal prerogatives, and her ancestral graves, was to the colonists 
the grand and mellow perspective of life, to which their New 
England dwellings on those bleak hill-sides, and beside that rock- 
bound bay, were the rude foreground, where they were to realize 
great principles of religion and government, achieve individual 
prosperity, and eventually battle manfully for freedom and truth. 
Meanwhile honest subsistence, religious zeal, and the cause of 
education, employed their energies. Months of dreary winter, 
when roofs were white with snow and the harbor a sheet of ice, 
alternated with a brief season of heat more than tempered by a 
keen breeze from the east ; so that only the hardy maize and 
tough grass yielded reliable crops. Orchards were their only 
vineyards, a good sermon their most available entertainment, and 
East and Thanksgiving days their festivals. The great event of 
the month was an arrival from England — usually a weather- 
beaten craft, often ten weeks on the voyage ; and her epitome of 
London news, the colonial agent she brought, the original copies 
of Pope's verses, Addison's Essay, or De Foe's novel, the new 



1 



I 



460 THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER. 

fashion for the '^gude dame" and her daughters, and the watch 
or shoe-buckles for her husband, made themes for the street and 
the hearthstone for many days. The isolation of such a com- 
munity, the fact that nonconformity had driven their fathers 
thither, the providence and frugality incident to the climate, the 
demand for foresight and self-denial, the force of public opinion, 
the distinction yielded to character, the comparative dearth of 
temptation, and the rigorous observance of family, church, and 
municipal discipline, though unfavorable to the more graceful and 
tender, moulded the sterner elements of humanity into unusual 
rectitude of purpose. To the expanded intellect and free aspira- 
tions of youth, there might be too much of the Puritan inflexi- 
bility and narrowness in such an environment ; but, as a means 
of acquiring the habit of self-dependence and self-control. — the 
vestibule of more enlarged and spontaneous development, — we 
cannot but recognize its inestimable value. 

The early circumstances, physical and moral, of men who leave 
distinct and permanent influences behind them, are more sig- 
nificant than we imagine. It was no accidental coincidence that 
reared the most fervent of false prophets in the arid vales of 
Arabia, the o;reatest of relio;ious reformers amonor the cold heio:hts 
of Germany, or the most fanatical of usurpers beside the monot- 
onous fens of Huntingdon. How intimate was the connection of 
the civil strife in Tuscany with the shadowy and sharp features 
of Dante's' muse, of the sunny lassitude of southern Italy and 
France with the amorous melody of Petrarch's numbers, of the 
fiery passions and stern hardihood of Corsican life with the indopi- 
itable will of Napoleon ! And who that knows New England, — 
even as modified by a foreign population, by the facilities of 
modern intercourse, and the liberality of an advanced civilization, 
— does not recognize, in the sagacity, prudence, hardihood, love 
of knowledge, industry, practical consistency, and wisdom of 
Frankin, the vigorous training of that Spartan mother, — the 
self-reliant discipline of that hard soil and rigid climate ? 

If the prime of Franklin's life was the critical era of our 
national fortunes, it was no less a period of literary and political 
transition in Great Britain. It was the epoch when History 
assumed a more philosophical development under the thoughtful 



BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. 461 

pen of Hume, when sentiment and humor grew bold and vagrant 
in expression through Sterne, when the greatest orator of the age 
recorded its events in the Annual Register, when humane letters 
rose in public esteem by virtue of Goldsmith's graceful style, 
when Garrick made the stage illustrious, when Methodism began 
its work, when the seer of Stockholm proclaimed spiritual science, 
and the bard of Olney sang the pleasures of rural and domestic 
life. Yet how diverse from them all was the renown their Amer- 
ican contemporary won, and the method of its acquisition ! It is 
the clear vista to a humble origin, and the gradual rise from the 
condition of a poor mechanic to that of a statesman and philoso- 
pher, opened by Franklin in his artless memoir of himself, which 
gave at once individuality and universality to his fame. AVho 
can estimate the vast encouragement derived by the lowliest 
seeker for knowledge and social elevation from such a minute 
chart of life, frankly revealing every stage of poverty, scepticism, 
obscure toil, dissipation, on the one side, — and manly resolution, 
indefatigable industry, frugal self-denial, patient study, honest 
and intelligent conviction, through, and by means of w^iich, the 
fugitive printer's boy, with no library but an odd volume of the 
Spectator and an Essay of De Foe's, translations of Plutarch 
and Xenophon, the treatises of Shaftesbury and Locke, an Eng- 
lish Grammar and the " Pilo-rim's Progress," trained himself to 
observe, to write, and to think, while earning often a precarious 
subsistence in Philadelphia and London by type-setting and pen- 
work? The play-house alternating with the club made up of 
vagabonds and steady fellows, both ''lovers of reading,'' a swim- 
ming-match and experiments in diet, conversation with ' ' inge- 
nious acquaintances," hard work, constant observation, and the 
habit of "improving by experience," exhibit the youth as he 
develops into the man, who, with remorse for the "errata" in 
his life, goes on to reveal the process, available to all with self- 
control and understanding, whereby from a ballad-hawker and 
printer he became a shop-keeper, then a journalist, and subse- 
quently launched into an unprecedented career of public useful- 
ness and honor. 

The example of Franklin is invaluable as a triumph of self- 
culture. His name was not only an honorable passport among 
39* 



462 THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER. 

the learned, but an endeared watchword to the humble. The 
lowliest laborer of the undistinguished multitude claims a part in 
his fame, as well as the great discoverer or the regal patron. 
Never dawned a self-reliant character more opportunely on the 
world ; at home, illustrating to a new country what perseverance, 
honesty, observation, and wisdom, can effect with the most limited 
resources ; abroad, proving to an ancient regime how independent 
a genuine man may be of courts, academies, and luxury ; — both 
the most requisite lessons for which humanity thirsted, and both 
enforced with an attractive candor, a gracious consistency, a mod- 
est resolution, which no argument could attain, and no rhetoric 
enhance. 

Let us glance at the variety of subjects, identified with human 
welfare and apart from political interests, which, from first to last, 
employed his mind, and elicited either sagacious conjectures or 
positive suggestions ; — the causes of earthquakes and the art 
of printing, the circulation of the blood and the cultivation of 
grasses, theories of light and the treatment of fevers, the manu- 
facture of salt by evaporation and the arrangement of musical 
glasses, a remedy for smoky chimneys and the tendency of 
rivei:s to the sea, husbandry and fireplaces, magnetism and 
water-spouts, the effect of oil on water, meteorology, the aurora 
borealis, toads, balloons, thermometers, and ventilation. He 
searches out the mossy inscriptions on the gravestones of his 
ancestors in Northamptonshire, and acquires proficiency in a for- 
eign language after sixty. He is one of a commission to examine 
the claims of Mesmer's theory in France, and to protect St. 
Paul's from lightning in London. He could not watch a shoot- 
ing star, glance at a metallic crystal, behold the flush of sunset 
clouds or the hectic on an invalid's cheek, note the ebb of the 
tide or the greeting of the wind, examine a proposed law of 
state or a vegetable product of the earth, hear a beetle hum or 
feel a quivering pulse, gaze on a petrifaction or a type, converse 
with a stranger or meet a committee, draft a plan or look at a 
machine, w^ithout feeling the plea of causality, striving to trace 
the origin of effects, and to infer a law applicable to the wants of 
his race, or the elucidation of truth. No experiment was too 
insignificant for his philosophy, no task too humble for his pat- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 463 

riotism. Open his correspondence at random ; here jou find 
precautionary hints for a voyage, there a sketch of an English 
school ; now observations on maize, and again remarks on paper 
currency ; to-day he draws up a plan of union for the colonies, 
to-morrow a dialogue with the Gout ; at one time he invents a 
letter from China, and at another counsels the settler beyond the 
Alleghanies ; commerce one moment, and ?ijeu d' esprit the next; 
advice to a Yankee tradesman, and a bagatelle for a Parisian lady, 
seem equally genial themes ; a state paper and a proverb, allegory 
and statistics, the way to save money and the way to form a 
government, an article for the "Busy Body," a fable for the* 
Almanac, and an epitaph for himself, — health, finance, natural 
history, the story of " The Whistle," — a theory of water-spouts, 
and " Cool Thoughts on Public Affairs," alternately occupy his 
pen; and to determine how many valuable precedents were estab- 
lished, what useful principles were realized, and what impulse 
was given to individual minds and to social progress by his 
enlightened activity, were as hopeless a task as to define the 
respective influence of the elements in fructification. He be- 
nignly and opportunely scattered the seeds of popular knowledge 
and of experimental science ; they took root in the virgin soil of 
a new civilization ; and the tiller of the earth, the reader of the 
newspaper, the frugal housewife, the public-spirited citizen, the 
aspiring mechanic, the honest tradesman, the legislator, and man 
of science, — the worker, thinker, companion, writer, the baffled 
and the novice, the adventurous and the truth-seeking of Amer- 
ica, caught gleams of wisdom, warnings of prudence, perceptions 
of law, moral and physical, from Franklin, which gave them a 
clue to prosperity, and a motive to culture. 

Like all resolute intelligences thus spontaneously breasting the 
vast ocean of truth, vigilant for discovery, and intent upon deduc- 
tion, his earnest confidence and patient search were rewarded by 
a signal triumph. Philosophy, thus loyally wooed, smiled upon 
her votary ; and nature, ever indulgent to the heart that loves 
her, whether with scientific insight or poetic enthusiasm, opened 
one arcana to his vision. The history of Eranklin's electrical 
experiments and discoveries is one of the most attractive, beauti- 
ful, and pregnant episodes in modern science. The grand sim- 



4G4 THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER. 

plicity of his theory, the familiar apparatus by which it was 
tested, the accuracy of his foresight, and the unpretending spirit 
with which he received the fame incident to so great a result, 
form together one of those memorable instances of the conquest 
of mind over matter, of human intelligence over the secret facts 
of nature, which add the cognizance of new laws to the domain 
of knowledge, and brighter names to the catalogue of her immor- 
tal disciples. However temporary in their prestige, or limited 
in their absolute use, may be the other fruits of his studies, 
Electricity is identified with Franklin. It is the common destiny 
of scientific discoverers to be forgotten in the very progress they 
initiate ; the pioneer is superseded in his march by the advanced 
guard, and what is a brilliant novelty to-day becomes a familiar 
truth to-morrow. The modern chemist forgets the alchemist, 
who, amid his illusive researches, brought to light some of the 
very principles that subserve later and more useful inquiries. 
The astronomer, as he sees, through a telescope undreamed of by 
the Chaldeans, a new planet wheel into the fields of vision, 
bestows no thought upon the isolated and self-denying astrolo- 
ger, who, in the fanciful task of casting nativities, systematized 
the first rude alphabet of the stars, which modern science has 
elaborated into that "poetry of heaven" whereby genius keeps 
vigil, and the trackless sea is navigated without perplexity. But 
it is otherwise with the initiation of an absolutely new branch of 
knowledge. When Franklin drew down the lightning, and iden- 
tified it with electricity, he forever allied his name to a subtle 
element, whose every subsequent revelation is associated with the 
kite and key, the thunder and the conductor, the benign image 
and endeared name of the Boston printer, the Philadelphia sage, 
and the American patriot. The vista his experiments opened has 
never ceased to lead further and deeper into the undiscovered 
mysteries of the universe ; and, at this moment, the element of 
natural science most prophetic of new wonders and subtle uses 
is electricity. The phenomena of consciousness and nervous 
sympathy point more and more to an intimate relation between 
the electric fluid and the vital principle. The most inscrutable 
of material forces, it appears to be the direct medium of sensa- 
tion, emotion, and all the modes of interaction between material 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 465 

existences and the embodied human soul. Bj it has recently been 
invented the most brilliant and powerful light yet obtained. As 
the most intense agent for decomposing the latent affinities of 
matter, and unimagined forces of locomotion and intercourse, its 
wonders are but foreshadowed in the electric telegraph, the appli- 
cation of magnetism as a motive power, and its use as a curative 
agent, and a disintegrating element. And it is worthy of remark 
that the magnetic expression of the human countenance, espe- 
cially of the eye, and the affinities of the individual temperament, 
are graduated by the moral as well as the physical condition, and 
are capable of apparent extinction through grossly material habits 
and perverted natural instincts, — facts which seem to confirm the 
near relation of the electric principle with life, emotion, and 
spiritual development, as exhibited in organic forms. The preva- 
lence of this unseen but ever vital principle in nature, in the 
amber of the torrent's bed and the fur of the domestic animal, in 
the circumambient air, in our own consciousness of attraction and 
repulsion, of cheerfulness and depression, in the healthy and the 
morbid experiences of humanity, would seem clearly to indicate 
that the sphere, whose latent significance was first revealed by 
Franklin, is limitless in its resources of power, use, and beauty. 

His varied aptitudes, offices, inquiries, and discoveries, secured 
for him a sphere of acquaintance and friendship embracing the 
widest range of human character, vocation, and renown. Among 
his early intimates were three colonial governors ; Godfrey, the 
inventor of the quadrant; and Ralph, a writer of history and 
verse. He took counsel on national affiiirs with Washington, the 
Revolutionary leaders, and the framers of the constitution : con- 
fronted the inimical scrutiny of the British ministry and parlia- 
ment ; was the messenger to Lord Howe, after a foreign army had 
encamped on our shores ; conferred with Gates. Schuyler, 
Adams, Hancock, Jay, Hopkinson, Morris, Jefferson, Livingston. 
and Quincy ; corresponded or conversed with Golden and Bar- 
tram, on natural history ; with Priestley and Sir Joseph Banks, on 
scientific questions; with Hume, on mental philosophy; with 
(and on a large diversity of subjects) Paine and Cobbett ; with 
Lafayette and the Count de Yergennes, Foy and Mazzei, Whit- 
field and the Duke of Orleans, Lord Kaimes, the Abbe Morelli, 



466 THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER. 

and Dr. Stiles, Madame Brillon and Dr. Robertson, Voltaire and 
Houdon, Darwin, Lord Chatham, Dr. Fothergill, D'Alembert, 
David Hartley, Diderot, and Madame Helvetius. From republi- 
can America to aristocratic France, at Philadelphia, London, and 
Versailles, in the court and the congress, the laboratory and the 
saloon, he enjoyed the best facilities and the most intimate asso- 
ciations. It is because of his readiness and versatility, his self- 
possession and independence, that in his life and letters we seem 
to behold, although ever conscious of his identity, at one time a 
grave philosopher and at another a genial companion, a patriarch 
here and a man of pleasure there ; the wary statesman to-day 
and the playful ^humorist to-morrow, — ever active, cognizant, 
alert, content, inventive, useful, wise, cheerful, self-sustained, 
provident, far-sighted, — the type of good sense and urbanity, of 
thoroughness and insight, of tact and aptness. Hence, too, the 
fecundity of anecdote to which his life gave birth. Nor was he 
insensible to these social privileges and considerations, which, in 
the retrospect of eminent lives, always seem the most desirable 
of their felicities. "The regard and kindness I meet with," he 
writes to his wife from London, " from persons of worth, and the 
conversation of ingenious men, give me no small pleasure ; " and 
he adds, with that superiority to circumstances and tenacity of 
purpose so characteristic : " I am for doing effectually what 
I came about, and I find it requires both time and patience." He 
elsewhere speaks of society as being his "dearest happiness." 
He tells us of his youthful zest for improving association when a 
printer's boy ; his image, costume, manner, sayings and doings, 
as a man of society, are among the traditions of the old French 
court.* One of the last written descriptions of him, dated in his 

* A once popular print represents Franklin in homespun, yarn stockings, and 
thick shoes, in the midst of a brilliant court, kissing, Yankee fashion, the queen, 
and the king crying " Encore ! " This is an exaggeration ; the facts are stated 
thus in Madame Campan's Memoirs of Marie Antoinette : 

" Dr. Franklin appeared at court in the costume of an American cultivator ; 
his hair plainly brushed, without powder. His round hat and plain coat of 
brown cloth contrasted strongly with the powdered coiffures and the bespan- 
gled and 'embroidered coats of the perfumed courtiers of Versailles. His simple 
and novel yet dignified appearance charmed the ladies of the court, and many 
were the fetes given him, not only for his fame as a philosopher,, but in acknowl- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 467 

lifetime, is that of a benign and cheerful octogenarian, seated in 
pleasant discourse under a mulberrj-tree, beside his dwelling, 
exhibiting to his attached grandchild a two-headed snake. In a 
letter to Washington, written the same year, he says : 

" For my own personal ease I should have died two years ago ; 
but, though those years have been spent in excruciating pain, yet 
I am pleased to have lived them, since they have brought me to 
see our present situation. I am now finishing my eighty-fourth 
year, and, probably, with it, my career in this life ; but in what- 
ever state of existence I am placed hereafter, if I retain any 
memory of what has passed here, I shall with it retain the esteem, 
respect, and affection, with which I have long been, my dear friend, 
yours most sincerely," etc. 

Parallel with his devotion to scientific inquiry was a ceaseless 
activity for public good, wherein his career is eminently distin- 
guished from that of the majority of modern philosophers. One 
of the earliest projectors of the conquest of Canada, he was also 
an efficient agent in raising troops for the unfortunate Braddock ; 
we find him vigorously at work throughout the scale of official 
duty and volunteer patriotism, at home and abroad, through the 
press and in society ; doing military service ; initiating fire-com- 
panies ; teaching " the way to wealth ; " speaker of the Pennsyl- 
vanian Assembly ; a postmaster ;* on committees ; promoting the 
culture of silk in America ; enlightening the British public on 
colonial affairs ; bringing from Europe the latest facts in science 
and polity for the benefit of his own countrymen ; casting type at 
Passy for a Philadelphia journal ; interceding for prisoners of 
war ; planning maritime expeditions with Paul Jones ; befriend- 
ing Captain Cooke ; exciting French sympathy for the American 

edgment of his patriotic virtues, which led him to enroll himself among the noble 
supporters of the cause of liberty. I assisted at one of these entertainments, 
where the most beautiful from among three hundred ladies was designated to 
place a crown of lam'el on the gray head, and to salute with a kiss each cheek, 
of the^ American philosopher." 

* A century ago, as Postmaster-General of the American colonies, he set out, in 
his old gig, to make an official inspection of the principal routes ; and eighty 
years since, he held the same office under the authority of Congress, when a 
small folio, now preserved in the department at Washington, containing three 
quires of paper, served as his account-book for two years. 



468 THE AMERICAN PniLOSOPHER. 

cause, and baffliog English prejudice ; a signer of the Declaration 
of Independence ; framing treaties of alliance for his native land ; 
the counsellor of the exile ; the adviser of the official ; a commis- 
sioner to Versailles ; a delegate to the convention which framed 
the Constitution of* the United States ; — a versatile and respon- 
sible series of occupations, enough to furnish alone the materials 
of a noble and distinguished life, and yet constituting but a single 
phase of the illustrious career of Franklin. 

The silent dignity with which he was content, amid the inev- 
itable attacks, and even insults, misrepresentations, and sneers, 
which attend success in every path and superiority of whatever 
kind, is one of the most admirable traits of Franklin's character, 
and one that was generously acknowledged by his opponents when 
the tide of prejudice and animosity ebbed. He met the caprices 
of delegated authority, the jealousy of his colleagues, the injus- 
tice of his political antagonists, the tirade of the solicitor-gen- 
eral of the crow^n, the attempts at bribery and intimidation, with 
a serene and undemonstrative resolution. '' My rule is," he said, 
" to go straight forward in doing what appears to me right at the 
time, leaving the consequences to Providence. I wish every kind 
of prosperity to my friends, and forgive my enemies." 

If there were no blemishes in this picture, it would scarcely be 
human ; but they are casual, and, like flitting shadows, of vague 
import, while through and above them the bland and sagacious, 
the honest and wise lineaments, tranquilly beam. The spirit of 
calculation, the narrowness of prudence, the limits of a matter-of- 
fact vision, the gallantries tolerated by the social standard of the 
times, the absence of that impulse and abandon^ that generous 
and ardent mood w^hich seems inseparable from the noblest and 
most aspiring natures, sometimes render Franklin too exclusively 
a provident utilitarian and a creature of the immediate, to satisfy 
our loftiest ideal of character, or our sympathies with genius as 
spontaneously and unconsciously manifest. Gossip has bequeathed 
hints of amours that derogate somewhat from the gravity of the 
sage ; partisan spite has w^hispered of a too selfish estimate of 
the chances of expediency ; and there are those who find in the 
doctrine and practice of the American philosopher an undue esti- 
mate of thrift, and an illustration of the creed that man ' ' lives 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 469 

by bread alone," which chills enthusiasm and subdues praise. 
Bat when we contemplate the amount of practical good he 
achieved, the value of his scientific discoveries, the uprightness, 
self-devotion, consistency of the man, the loyal activity of the 
patriot, and the interests he promoted, the habits he exemplified, 
the truths he made vital, and the prosperity he initiated, our 
sense of obligation, our admiration of his practical wisdom, and 
our love of his genial utility, merge critical objection in honor 
and gratitude. What is the flippant sarcasm of the queen, cited 
by Madame du Barry, that he eat asparagus like a savage, to 
intellectual Hume's assertion that '' America has sent us many 
good things, gold, silver, sugar, indigo, etc., but you are the first 
philosopher " ? If, on the one hand, his having embraced Vol- 
taire in the presence of the French Academy be cited as proof 
of persiflage^ on the other, his frank expression of religious con- 
victions to Dr. Stiles, evidences a deliberate faith in things 
unseen and eternal. If the graphic pen of Mrs. Grant, in depict- 
ing the candid graces of colonial life in America, attributes the 
subsequent devotion to gain, to the economical maxims of Frank- 
lin, the sacred opinion of Washington affords a more just view 
of the legitimate rank their author held in the affections of his 
countrymen. ''If to be venerated for benevolence, if to be 
admired for talents, if to be esteemed for patriotism, if to be beloved 
for philanthropy, can gratify the human mind, you must have 
the pleasing consolation to know that you have not lived in 
vain." 

It must be confessed that the spiritual was not developed in 
Franklin's nature in proportion to the scientific element, and, as 
an inevitable consequence, religion was a grand social interest, 
or, at most, a private conviction rather than a matter of profession 
or of sentiment. It is probable that an early and not auspicious 
familiarity with the conflicts of sects confirmed his aversion to a 
merely doctrinal faith. He was familiar in his native town and 
in his adopted home respectively with the two extremes of pre- 
scriptive belief and strongly marked individualism, as displayed 
by the Puritans and the Quakers, and found enough of vital 
piety and moral worth in both to emancipate him from supersti- 
tious reliance on a positive ci;eed. But there is ample evidence 
40 



470 THE AMERICAN PIIILOSOPHER. 

that he recognized those broad and eternal truths which lie at 
the basis of all religion. He seems to have profoundly felt his 
responsibleness to a higher than earthly power ; everywhere he 
beheld a wise and beneficent Creator, in the operation of material 
and moral laws ; always he sought the traces of Divine wisdom 
in the universe and in events. We find him advisin"^ his daufrhtor 
to rely more upon prayer than sermons ; recognizing the hand of 
Providence in the destinies of his country ; moving a resolution 
for devotional services in the convention that framed the consti- 
tution ; preparing an abridgment of the ritual ; and, in his last 
days, enjoying those devotional poems which have so long endeared 
the name of Watts. It is not so much the comparative silence of 
Franklin on religious or rather sectarian questions, which has 
given rise to a vague notion of his scepticism and indifference, as 
the fact that he acknowledged deistical opinions in youth, and sub- 
sequently worked almost exclusively in the sphere of material 
interests, and was intimately associated with the infidel philoso- 
phers of France. Other afiinities than those of speculative unbe- 
lief, however, allied him to a class of men whose names have 
become watchwords of infidelity ; literature and science, govern- 
ment and philosophy, were themes of mutual investigation com- 
mon to them and him; and if, in order to attest their sense 
of his intelligence and republicanism, they placed his bust upon 
the altar of the Jacobin Club with those of Brutus, Helvetius, 
Mirabeau, and Rousseau, it was chiefly because, with those friends 
of popular freedom and social reform, he had proved himself an 
independent thinker and a noble devotee of human progress, and 
because, to the vague though eloquent sentiment of social amelio- 
ration kindled by Jean Jacques, his practical sagacity had given 
actual embodiment. Few men, indeed, have lived whose time, 
mind, and resources were more wisely and conscientiously directed 
to the elevation of society, the enlightenment of the mass, and 
the improvement of human condition. He was indisputably one 
of the greatest benefactors of mankind. 

Except in a scientific direction, however, it must be acknowl- 
edged that the spirit of Franklin's precepts and theories is not 
adapted to beguile us "along the line of infinite desires;" his 
wisdom was applicable to the immediate and the essential in daily 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 471 

and common life : he dealt chiefly with details ; he advocated 
habits, ideas, and methods, based on positive utility ; success as 
derived from patient and gradual but determined action, minute 
observation, careful practice, rather than from broad generaliza- 
tion, daring achievement, or the imagination and enthusiasm which 
so often prove intuitive means of triumph, which are indispensable 
in art, and constitute the difference between the process of genius 
and that of talent. There is nothing certain, he used to say, but 
death and taxes ; happiness he believed the aggregate of small 
satisfactions, rather than the instant realization of a great hope : 
and fortune he regarded as the reward of assiduity and prudence, 
rather than of prosperous adventure or of daring enterprise. 
Compared with the ephemeral impulses, the obscure theories, the 
visionary and uncertain principles, in vogue elsewhere and before 
and since his day, there was incalculable value in his maxims and 
example. But it would be gross injustice to the versatile and 
comprehensive nature of man, to the aspirations of exalted minds, 
to the facts of spiritual philosophy, to the needs of immortal 
instincts, to the faith of the soul, the aimals of genius, and the 
possible elevation of society, to admit that such views are more 
than the material basis of human progress, or the external condi- 
tions of individual development. What the ballast is to the ship, 
the trellis to the vine, health of body to activity of mind, such 
was Franklin's social philosophy to human welfare ; all-important 
as a means, inadequate as a final provision ; a method of insuring 
the cooperation of natural aids, of fostering intrinsic resources, 
whereby the higher elements may freely do their work, and man, 
sustained by favorable circumstances, and unhampered by want, 
neglect, and improvidence, may the more certainly enjoy, aspire, 
love, conceive, expand, and labor, according to the noblest inspi- 
ration and the grandest scope of his nature and his destiny. 

If we compare the life of Franklin, as a whole, with that of 
other renowned philosophers, we find that the isolated self-devo- 
tion, the egotism and vanity, which too often derogate from the 
interest and dignity of their characters as men, do not mar the 
unity of the tranquil, honest, and benign disposition, which lends 
a gracious charm to the American philosopher. Archimedes 
invented warlike machines to overthrow the invaders of his couu- 



I 



472 THE AMERICAN PIIILOSOPnER. 

try ; but his heart did not warm like Franklin's, nor did his brain 
work to devise the means of elevating his poor and ignorant 
felloAV-citizens in the scale of knowledge and self-government. 
Newton proclaimed vast and universal laws; -but there was in his 
temper a morbid tenacity of personal fame, beside which the dis- 
interested zeal of Franklin is beautiful. The scope of Franklin's 
research was limited in comparison with that of Humboldt ; but 
unsustained, like that noble savant, by royal patronage, he sac- 
rificed his love of science for half his lifetime to the cause of his 
country. Arago excelled him in the power of rhetorical eulogy 
of the votaries of their common pursuits ; but while the French 
philosopher spoke eloquently to a learned academy, the American 
had a people for his audience, and disseminated among them truths 
vital to their progress and happiness, in a diction so clear, direct, 
and convincing, that it won them simultaneously to the love of 
science and the practice of wisdom. 

When he was released from official care, his mental activity, 
though um-emitted, was singularly genial ; and to this character- 
istic of the philosophical temperament we attribute his self-posses- 
sion, rational enjoyment, and consequent longevity; for, of all 
pursuits, that which has for its aim general knowledge and the 
discovery and application of truth, while it raises the mind above 
casual disturbance, supplies it with an object at once unimpas- 
sioned and attractive, serene yet absorbing, a motive in social 
intercourse, and a resource in seclusion. Just before Thierry's 
recent death, although he was long a martyr to disease, he 
remarked to a friend : " Had I to begin my life again, I would 
again set out in the path which has led me to where I am. Blind 
and suffering, without hope and without intermission, I may say, 
without giving testimony which can be suspected, there is some- 
thing in this world better than material pleasure, better than 
fortune, better than health itself, and this is attachment to sci- 
ence." Of this good Franklin was a large partaker, and we 
cannot but imagine the delight and sympathy with which he 
would have followed the miraculous progress of the modern 
sciences, and of those ideas of which he beheld but the dawn. 
"I have sometimes almost wished," he writes, "it had been my 
destiny to be born two or three centuries hence ; for inventions 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 473 

and improvements are prolific, and beget more of their kind." 
Had he lived a little more than another fifty years, he would have 
seen the mode of popular education initiated by the Spectator 
expanded into the elaborate Review, the brilliant Magazine, the 
Household Words, and scientific journals of the present day ; the 
rude hand-press, upon which he arranged the miniature " copy" 
of the New England Courant, transformed into electrotyped 
cylinders worked by steam and throwing off thirty thousand 
printed sheets an hour ; the thin almanac, with its proverbs and 
calendar, grown to a plethoric volume, rich in astronomical lt5re 
and the statistics of, a continent; the vessel dependent on the 
caprice of the winds and an imperfect science of navigation, self- 
impelled with a pre-calculated rate of speed, and by the most 
authentic charts; and the subtle fluid, that his prescience caught 
up and directed safely by a metal rod, sent along leagues of wire 
— the silent and instant messenger of the world ! With what 
keen interest would he have followed I)avy, with his safety-lamp, 
into the treacherous mine ; accompanied Fulton in his first steam 
voyage up the Hudson ; watched Daguerre as he made his sun- 
pictures ; seen the vineyards along the Ohio attest his prophetic 
advocacy of the Rhenish grape-culture ; heard Miller discourse f 

of the " Old Red Sandstone," Morse explain the Telegraph, or 
Maury the tidal laws ! Chemistry, almost born since his day, | 

would open a new and wonderful realm to his consciousness ; the i 

Cosmos of Humboldt would draw his entranced gaze down every ] 

vista of natural science, as if to reveal at a glance a programme [ 

of all the great and beautiful secrets of the universe ; and the 
reckless enterprise and mad extravagance of his prosperous coun- 
try would elicit more emphatic warnings than Poor Richard 
breathed of old. 

There have been many writers who, in simple and forcible 
English, by arguments drawn from pure common sense and 
enlivened by wit or eloquence, interpreted political truth, and 
vastly aided the education of the people. But, in the case of 
Franklin, this practical service of authorship was immeasurably 
extended and confirmed by the prestige of his electrical discoveries, 
by the dawning greatness and original principles of the country 
of which he was so prominent a representative, and by the extraor- 
40* 



474 THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER. 

dinary circumstances of his times, when great social and political 
questions were brought to new and popular tests, which made the 
homely scientific republican an oracle in the most luxurious and 
artificial of despotic courts. When the intricate tactics of rival 
armies have been exhausted, the able general has recourse to a 
coiij) de maiii, and effects by simple bravery what stratagem 
failed to win. When a question has been discussed until its pri- 
mary significance is almost forgotten in a multitude of side-issues, 
the true orator suddenly brings to a focus the scattered elements 
of 4he theme, and, by a clear and emphatic statement, reproduces 
its normal features, and, through a bold analysis, places it in the 
open light of truth, and heralds the bewildered council to a final 
decision. In like manner, when vital principles of government 
and society have been complicated by interest, speculation, and 
misfortune, when men have grown impatient of formulas and 
ceremonies, and aspire to realities, he who in his speech, dress, 
habits, writings, manners, and achievements, — or, in the expo- 
nent of all these, his character, — represents most truly the 
normal instincts, average common sense, and practicable good, of 
his race, is welcomed as an exemplar, an authority, and a repre- 
sentative. Such was the American philosopher at once in the 
eyes of a newly-organized and self-dependent nation, and in those 
of an ancient people, in its transition from an outgrown to an 
experimental regime. 

He took his degree in the school of humanity before the tech- 
nical honor was awarded by Oxford, Edinburgh, and the Royal 
Society. It was this preeminent distinction which led Sydney 
Smith to playfully threaten his daughter, " I will disinherit you 
if you do not admire everything written by Franklin ; " and 
which enshrines his memory in the popular heart, makes him 
still the annual hero of the printer's festival, associates his name 
with townships and counties, inns and ships, societies and period- 
icals, — with all the arrangements and objects of civilization that 
aim to promote the enlightenment and convenience of man. The 
press and the lightning-rod, the almanac, the postage-stamp, and 
the free-school medal, =^ attest his usefulness and renown; maxims 

* " I was born in Boston, in New England," — this is the simple language of 
his wiU, — "and owe my first instructions in literature to the free grammar 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 475 

of practical wisdom more numerou.^ than Don Quixote's garrulous 
squire cited gave birth under his hand to a current proverbial 
philosophy ; and his effigy is, therefore, the familiar symbol of 
independence, of popular education, and self-culture. Those 
shrewd and kindly features, and that patriarchal head, are as 
precious to the humble as the learned ; and in every land and 
every language Franklin typifies the "greatest good of the 
greatest number." Mignot rightly defines him as " gifted with 
the spirit of observation and discovery ; " Davy calls his induc- 
tive power felicitous ; Paul Jones augured success in his desperate 
sea-fights from the '' Bon Homme Richard;" and the memorable 
epigraph of Turgot is the acknowledged motto of his escutcheon : 

" Erupuit coelo fulmen 
Sceptrumque tyrannis." 

schools established there." He added the bequest of a fund, of which the income 
should be annually applied, in silver medals, to be awarded to the most meritcv- 
rious boys in these schools. 



TiLIPS, SAMPSOX, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

HISTORY. 

'§xntotl 

HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF PfllllP II. 

By William H. Prescott. With Portraits, Maps, Plates, &c 
Two volumes, 8vo. Price, in musliii, $2 per volume. 

The reig-n of Pldlip the Second, embracing the last half of the sixteenth century, 
Is one of the most important as well as interesting portions of modern history. 
It is neo^sary to glance only at some of the principal events. The "War of the 
Netherlands — the model, so to say, of our o^yJl glorious War of the ReTolution 
— the Siege of Malta, and its memorable defence by the Knights of St. John; the 
bi-illiant career of Don John of Austria, the hero of Lepanto ; the Quixotic adven- 
tures of Don Sebastian of Portugal; the conquest of that kingdom by the Duke 
of Alba ; Philip's union with Mary of England, and his wars with Elizabeth, with 
the story of the Invincible Armada; the Inquisition, with its train of woes; the 
rebellion of the Moriscos, and the cruel manner in which it was avenged — these 
form some of the prominent topics in the foreground of the picture, which pr*?. 
eents a crowd of subordinate details of great interest in regard to the character 
and court of Philip, and to the institutions of Spain, then in the palmy days of 
her prosperity. The materials for this vast theme were to be gathered from every 
part of Europe, and the author has for many years been collecting them from the 
archives of different capitals. The archives of Simancas, in particular, until very 
lately closed against even the native historian, have been opened to his researches ; 
and his collection has been further enriched by MSS. from .some of the principal 
houses in Spain, the descendants of the great men of the sixteenth century. Such 
a collection of original documents has never before been made for the illustration 
of this period. 

The two volumes now published bring down the story to the execution of 
Counts Egmont and Hoorn in 1568, and to the imprisonment and death of Don 
Carlos, whose mysterious fate, so long the subject of speculation, is now first ex- 
plored by the light of the authentic records of Simancas. 

• 

HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, 
The Catholic. 

By W. H. Prescott. With Portraits. Three Tolumes, 8vo. 
Price, in muslin, $2 per volvune. 

" Mr. Prescott's merit chiefly consists in the skilful arrangement of his materi- 
als, in the spirit of philosophy which animates the work, and in a clear and ele- 
gant style that charms and interests the reader. His book is one of the most 
successful historical productions of our time. The inhabitant of another world, 
Ue seems to have shaken off the prejudices of ours. In a word, he has, in every 
respect, made a most valuable addition to our historical literature." — Edhiburah 
Rtview. 



PIITLLIP?. ?AMPSO>:, A m.'S rUBLTCATTONS 



HISTORY OF THE CONGEST OP MEXICO, 

With the Life of the Conqueror, Fernando Cortez, and a Vie-« 
of the Ancient Mexican Civilization. By W. H. Prescott. 
With Portrait and Maps. Three volumes, 8vo. Price, in mus- 
lin, $2 per volume. 

" The more closely we examine Mr. Prescott's work the more do we find cause 
to commend his diligent research. His vivacity of manner and discursive obser- 
vations scattered through notes as well as text, furnish countless proofs of hia 
matchless industry. In point of style, too, he ranks with the ablest English his- 
torians ; and paragraphs may be found in his volumes in which the grace and 
eloquence of Addison are combined with Robertson's majestic caxience and Gib- 
bon's brilliancy." — Athenceum. 

HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF PERU ; 

With a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the Incas. By 
W. H. Prescott. With Portraits, Maps, &c. Tvro vols., 8vo. 
Price, in muslin, $2 per volume. 

" The world's history contains no chapter more striking and attractive than 
that comprising the narrative of Spanish conquest in the Americas. Teeming 
with interest to the historian and philosopher, to the lover of daring enterprise 
and marvellous adventure, it is full of fascination. A clear head and a sound 
judgment, great industry and a skilful pen, are needed to do justice to the sub- 
ject. These necessary qualities have been found united in the person of an ac- 
complished American author. Already favorably known by his histories of the 
eventful and chivalrous reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the exploits of 
the Great Marquis and his iron followers, Mr. Prescott has added to his well- 
merited reputation by his narrative of the Conquest of Peru." — Blackwood. 

Mr. Prescott's works are also bound in more elaborate styles, 

— half calf, half turkey, full calf, and turkey antique. 



THE HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS 



By Rev. John Stetson Barry. To be comprised in three vol- 
umes, octavo. Voluftie I. embracing the Colonial Period, down 
to 1692, now ready. Volumes II. and III. in active prepara- 
tion. Price, in muslin, $2 per volume. 

Extracts from a Letter from Mr. Prescott, the Historian. 

Boston, June 8, 1855. 
Messrs. Phillips, Sampson, & C!o. 

CfenfUmen, — The History is based on solid foundations, as a glance at the at. 
tiorities will show. 

The author has well exhibited the elements of the Puritan character, which he 
has evidently studied with much care. His style is perspicuous and manly, free 
from affectation ; and he merits the praise of a conscientoous endeavor to be im- 
partial. 

The volume must be found to make a valuable addition to our stores of colonial 
history. Truly yours. 

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT. 



PinLLIPS, SAMPSON, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Abdication of James 
II., 1688. By David Hume, Esq. A new edition, with the 
author's last corrections and improvements ; to which is pre- 
fixed a short account of his life, written by himself. Six vol- 
umes, mth Portrait. Black muslin, 40 cents per volume ; in 
red muslin, 50 cents ; half binding, or library style, 50 cents 
per volume; half calf, extra, $1.25 per volume. 
The merits of this history are too well known to need comment. Despite the 
author's predilections in favor of the House of Stuart, he is the historian most 
respected, and most generally read. Even the brilliant Macaulay, though seek- 
ing to establish an antagonistic theory with respect to the royal prerogative, did 
not choose to enter the h'sts with Hume, but after a few chapters by way of CTir- 
Bory review, began his history where his great predecessor had left off. 

No work in the language can take the place of this, at least for the present 
century. And nowhere can it be found accessible to the general reader for any 
thing like the price at which this handsome issue is furnished. 

These standard histories, Hume, Gibbon, Macaulay, and Lingard, are known as 
the Boston Library Edition. For uniformity of style and durability of binding, 
quality of paper and printing, they are the cheapest books ever offered to the 
American public, and the best and most convenient editions published in thia 
country. 



THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

From the Accession of James II. By ITiomas Babington Ma- 
caulay. Four volumes, 12mo., with Portrait. Black muslin, 40 
cents per volume ; red muslin, 50 cents ; library style and 
half binding, 50 cents; calf, extra, $1.25. 

" The all-accomplished Mr. Macaulay, the most brilliant and captivating of 
English writers of our own day, seems to have be*i born for the sole purpose of 
making English history as fascinating as one of Scott's romances." — North Amer' 
ican Review. 

" The great work of the age. While every page affords evidence of great re- 
search and unwearied labor, giving a most impressive view of the period, it haa 
til the interest of an historical romance." — Baltimore Patriot. 



THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE RO 
MAN EBIPIRE, 

By Edward Gibbon, Esq. With Notes by Rev. H. H. Milman. 
A new Edition. To which is added a complete Index of the 



PniLLTPS/ SAMPSON, 4 CO.'S PUBLIC ATIf/ir.. 

whole work. Six volumes, with Portrait. 12mo., muslin, 40 
cents per volume ; red muslin, ,50 cents; half binding, or li- 
brary style, 50 cents per volume ; half calf, extra, $1.25. 
"We commend it as the best library editiou extant."' — JiosUm Transcript. 
"The publishers are now doinjr an essential service to tlie risini:? generation in 
Dlacing within their reach a work of such acknowledged merit, and so absolute- 
ly indispensable." — Baltimore American. 

" Such an edition of this English classic has lonp: been wanted ; it v? et mix 
convenient, economical, and elegant." — Ho^ne. Journal. 



A HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

From the first Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of 
William and Mary in 1688. By John Lingard, D. D. From 
the last revised liondon edition. In thii'teen volumes ; illus- 
trated title pages, and portrait of the author. 12mo., muslin. 
Price, 75 cents per volume. 

"This history has taken its place among the classics of the English language." 
— Lowell Courier. 

"It is infinitely superior to Hume, and there is no comparison between it and 
Macaulay's romance. Whoever has not access to the original monuments will 
find Dr. Lingard's work the best one ho can consult."' — Brownson's Review. 

" Lingard's history has been long known as the best history of England ever 
written ; but hitherto the price has been sxich as deprived all but the most 
wealthy readers of any chance of possessing it. Now, however, its publication 
has been commenced in a beautiful style, and at such a price that no "student of 
history need fail of its acquisition." — Albany Transa-ipt. 



HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1848, 

By Alphonse de Lamartine. Translated by F. A. Durivage 
and William S. Chase. In one volume, octavo, ■v\'ith illustra- 
tions. Price, in muslin, $2.25. 
Same work, in a 12mo. edition, muslin, 75 cents ; sheep, 90 cents. 
*A most graphic history of great events, by one of the principal actors therein. 
"The day will come when Lamartiiie, standing by the gate-post of the Hotel de 
Ville, and subduing by his eloquence the furious passions of the thousands upon 
thousands of delirious revolutionists, who soiight they knew not what at the 
hands of the self-constituted Provisional Government of 1848, will be commemo- 
rated in stone, on canvas, and in song, as the very impersonation of moral sub- 
limity." — Meth. Quo.rterly Bevieio. 

" No fitting mete-w^and hath To-day 
For measuring spirits of thy stature, — 
Only the Future can reach up to lay 
The laurel on that lofty nature. — 
Bard, who with some diviner art 
Hast touched the bard"s true lyre, a nation's heart." 

James llmseU Lowell, - To Lamartine." 



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